In the beginning, there was the Louisville Courier-Journal.
Then, during the reign of King Ronald, it came to pass that the much-esteemed journalism magnate Barry Bingham, Sr., surveying the sad state of his feuding and petty progeny, decided it was time to cash in on his investment while he was alive to enjoy the money.
In due time the new owner, Gannett (as in “net profit”), rode into Louisville and set up shop in the former Bingham workplace. Standards began to change as the inexorable dumbing-down effects of corporate profiteering functioned as a sort of long-term, tubercular, wasting disease.
Imagine your favorite unique, singular, family-run pub purchased, gutted and re-packaged by Hooter’s or Applebee’s, and you’ll have some idea as to the long-term results of Gannett’s purchase.
A year or so ago, Gannett unveiled Velocity, a splashy new tabloid designed to put the Louisville Eccentric Observer (LEO), a decade-old “alternative” weekly, out of business and afterwards corner the lucrative entertainment (food, dining, movies, etc.) advertising market.
Just as Michelob Amber Bock earns classification as a mockrobrew (a mass-market beer packaged to look like a legitimate microbrew), Velocity is a fine looking publication that maintains a rigorous negligibility in any sense of progressive, literate journalistic standards.
The articles on Velocity’s pages are kept short, with simple words, and are arranged in such a way as to avoid interfering with the multi-colored, profuse advertising copy that is the paper’s only real reason for being.
Velocity’s editorial policy can be fairly summarized thusly: This week our edgy attitudinal arbiters of style will tell you what’s hot, and they’ll direct your attention to an advertiser so you can show the world you’re hip by spending money there.
Next week, we’ll do the same thing again. The week after that … you guessed it. You’re smarter than you look.
And all this comes with the Velocity Pledge: We promise not to make you think very much because we know how hard that can be when all you want to do is find a cheap cocktail, be seen at the right place, and get laid.
Imagine my surprise when I picked up this week’s Velocity and saw a commentary (written by a high ranking staffer, no less) on the topic of the American presidential election.
Thomas Nord offers his take on the blue-red cultural divide, expressing his view that in the end, it’s a purple country after all, and while this isn’t the most original of ideas to emerge from the recently concluded campaign, for Velocity it’s tantamount to revolutionary theses nailed on the front door.
I wonder if Nord will be able to keep his job.
Confused by the appearance of such an article in the safely apolitical pages of Velocity, I wrote to Nord:
"Am I the only casual observer of Velocity to detect a note of the bizarre in your post-election commentary, “America is more colorful than blue and red?”
"Do you sense any degree of schizoid disconnect between your thoughtful, intelligent commentary and the stylistic philosophy of the publication in which it appeared?
"Let’s see, Velocity … a colorful weekly publication created by a bottom line corporate news factory, and imbued with the narrowest demographic focus available to devotees of statistical analysis. Staffers advised to pursue any and all red-hot trends with a shelf life equal to the lifespan of a fruit fly (or one week, whichever comes first). Relentless flippant attitude, in some cases so transparently forced as to suggest stylistic templates grafted directly onto the quivering skin of writers.
"The ephemeral is repackaged as gospel. The masses gather at Fourth Street Live to celebrate. Louisville finally has arrived.
"But then, after an important election campaign that was acknowledged by Velocity only in the most grudging of voids (“go out and vote, then visit this week’s red-hot advertiser”), there appears a column detached from the prevailing template, seemingly written by a human being with more on his mind than the appeasement of a clueless target demographic .
"Something about something? How’d you get it past your boss, Gail Wynand?
"Just curious.
"And thank you for it."
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