May 21, 2008
Eye Will Survive
In an article in last Saturday's Globe about NOW and Eye's dwindling readerships, Eye's City Editor Edward Keenan told the Globe that "we keep asking, how do we reinvent ourselves? But maybe we should stop trying to be the best of a dying species." Keenan's words felt a bit out of place, coming, as they did, at the end of an article that featured the publishers of both weeklies assuring the Globe that their papers were definitely not on the way out. (Michael Hollett of NOW: "Those numbers freeze a moment in time....but it's just one of many ways of counting. Our boxes are empty and business is good." Peter Burke of Eye: "The sky isn't falling....the industry remains a solid way for advertisers to reach readers and for journalists to serve a meaningful community of readers." )
Keenan's words will all make a bit more sense on Thursday afternoon, though, when Eye launches its new blog, Toronto Notes, taking its largest step yet towards creating a strong online presence as a complement to (and, eventually, it seems, a replacement for) the printed paper.
Keenan confirmed to Torontoist that Toronto Notes—which will be located either here or here and will definitely be linked from here—will shoot "for quality daily content," and will feature Paul Isaacs for "on-the-street reporting," Jonathan Goldsbie (yes, that one) for City Hall correspondence, and Keenan and other Eye contributors filling out the site with other posts.
Until this point, the Achilles' heel for Eye's online presence has been...well, its website. Take, as two examples, their frustrating movie listings, or that Marc Weisblott's excellent Scrolling Eye only recently got an RSS feed. (NOW's website, for the record, is worse, but neither paper could be called a winner.) Keenan assures us, however, that Eye "expect[s] to continue to make technological and presentation-style tweaks in the months ahead, adding more new features and improving interactivity as we go along." Which is good! Keenan said that they're "excited," and so are we. Eye needs a big shake-up, and their website seems as good a place as any to start the reinvention.
Photo by Moiz Syed from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
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Suppose it might have something to do with the increasingly stupid articles in NOW?
Two that stick out in my mind are the Ecoholic issue of NOW, where Adria Vasil encouraged consumers to march back to retail stores with their unwanted packaging and make it my problem (yeah right, there's nothing I can do about it, once you leave my store I'm putting it in the garbage), or the recent Earth Day issue with the wacky astrology article about planetary alignment and world events.
Or the article in that same issue about the nuts and roots and etc that you can pick off the ground in Toronto and eat.
Or publishing angry letters from vegetarians when they write an article about compassionate carnivores...
These days I just skip to the event listings.
I stopped reading Eye shortly after the last redesign/editorial revamp. I found it hard on the eyes and missing a lot of the types or articles and sidebars I liked. I tried to like it; I really did, but it lost all the personality and quirky attitude I looked forward to every Thursday. I bailed completely when the online movie listings changed to the idiotic current design.
I agree that there is little to the articles in NOW these days and that they're increasingly wacky and bizarre. I was irritated enough to write a letter to the editor once when they were bitching about the skin of fruit being harmlessly branded by lasers. Nothing, however, beats this collossal stupidity they published in an alt.health article on menstrual cramps:
Now has always been a bit hypocritical with all the shrieking about women's rights over the years and then gladly having 15 pages of hooker ads in every single issue.
Ugh, that quote is ridiculous Marc. People like that give feminists a bad name - my cramps are caused by patriarchy? At least it's good to know that putting rocks in my pocket will help!
I wonder if the Eye site will also be advertising cigarettes, as they do in the print mag. I also stopped reading it shortly after the redesign, and was shocked to find 4 full page tobacco ads in a copy I flipped through on the subway a few weeks ago.
NOW has become a bit more looney and knee-jerk in its writing.
I became disenchanted with NOW last year (or the year before, I forget) while reading an article about the Toronto Police Service graduation ceremony being held outdoors in Nathan Philips Square for the first time.
The writer started out the article by complaining about the use of "Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls" by the Master of Ceremony, bitching about how "girls always come last". WTF? At the point, I put the paper down.
It's alive.
Paul Isaacs's post is mindblowing.
I think prostitution and feminism can live together in harmony
AH! I created a monster.