Overlord FAIL Part II

This past Monday, the Editorial Staff here at Um–like, we’re gonna guess, those of most of the rest of our…more professional colleagues– was market watching. Waiting, not unlike our pal Eliot (whose Facebook status message, we’d like to point out, hides little in the way of the glee we’re pretty sure that all 15 of the remaining for-real Marxists are feeling right about now) for the economy to fall apart. Hoping, not unlike–again, we’re gonna guess–most of our fellow media vultures (and, probably our pal Eliot) for some kinda, scroll-dominating, honest-to-god-breaking-news-graphic-worthy collapse that would, sure, totally wreck our world, but also provide us with a bit of entertaining ridiculousness.

Then, just before the Dow tanked, we found ourselves briefly distracted by a smaller financial mess. For those of you not inclined to click, that up there would be a link to a story posted by Washington City Paper editor Erik Wemple on that paper’s web site. And it starts like this:

“Creative Loafing Inc., the owner of Washington City Paper, announced this morning that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.”

Hmmm…We here at Um are left to wonder whether maybe our headlines can predict the future.

In any case, CP’s subsequent coverage of all this seems to run a bit toward the HA-HA, or at least as HA-HA as a publication can be after their parent company has gone all belly-up (which, with good reason, is still pretty HA-HA): Still, reporter Angela Valdez has a pretty nice run-down of just how crazy the whole thing (greenbacks aside) is.

For those of you interested in a less…well, HA-HA take on things, the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies has pulled together a fairly wide cut of coverage right about here.

Read it and–if yr at all like the Editorial Staff Here at Um–weep (for, like, you know, the AltWeekly industry).

Overlord FAIL

Over the past few weeks, the editorial staff here at Um has been biding our time. Waiting. Hoping that maybe, just maybe, we’d be presented with something that would pull us away from our school work and force us to return ourselves to our loyal readers.

So we’d like to offer thanks to the marketing geniuses at Creative Loafing, who’ve managed to end this hiatus. These folks–well, really, their publisher-bosses–you’ll remember, are the winners who, only a year-or-so ago bought themselves the perfectly-fine (all profit-hemorrhaging aside) AltWeekly franchise that used to host most of the analog media work penned by the editorial staff here at Um.

And then promptly began shearing that paper’s budget.

Out went various editorial positions. Gone (in all practicality) were certain freelancing opprotunities. Dismissed was virtually the entire production staff.  In keeping with what looks like a nation-wide trend, the paper shrank.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, the paper turned to pure service journalism (a controversial proposition that we here at Um highlight only for the fact that we remember making fun of the idea in more than one CP editorial meeting) and…covering college newspapers (likewise).

Okay. So. Times change. Especially if an industry suffers a downturn like the one my former employers are being forced to deal with. And, the man at the top of the masthead (and thus ultimately responsible for all of the editorial content) remains the same Erik Wemple that I learned to respect both intellectually and in terms of those all-important journo ethics. A combination of these facts with that whole profit-hemorrhaging thing might lead one to conclude that a) CP was headed for some sort of financial editing with or without Creative interference b) what’s come out of all this is a publication better situated for these market changes and c) with Wemple at the helm, the best will be made of a bad situation.

‘Course if that were all true, we here at Um would still be working on that piece for our Memoir-writing class.

This brings us back to the Creative Loafing marketing department. According to CP’s Andrew Beaujon, there’s been no small amount of push from said jokers (he calls it “City Paper’s new-found promotional intensity”), a move which recently found my alma up to its neck in trinkets.

Sure, product awareness might help increase circulation. But dumbing it down (read: doinking much of what formerly made the thing a D.C. conversation starter, including, now, its defining cover section, and adding fluffy blog content) will almost surely force formerly loyal readers away from those shiny street boxes.

Maybe CL doesn’t care about those folks. And that might even be just fine. But that’s not gonna change the problem that they have: The paper that they’ve Creat-ed not only won’t hold the interest of the folks who used to love it (and to love to hate it), with the loss of all of its feature content, the thing becomes (with the exception of its perpetually (knock on wood) wonderful Loose Lips column) something that can be beat (scooped, whatever) on virtually every relevant thing.

So thanks. Thanks Creative Loafing. But, to cliche, no thanks.

I Anchor at Hyannis. How ‘Bout You?

A hefty-sized portion of U.S. politics (or, to be fair, politics in any country that so much as flirts with the concept of democracy) is, for the folks running for office, about convincing the citizenry that, whoever you are, you can identify with commoners. The rest? Well, that’s mostly spent on making said suckers believe that you’re actually working on their behalf.

Sometimes, circumstances deal our elites a fortunate hand in this regard. Sometimes, they don’t. Either way, every four years, the United States gets itself all worked up over the perceived successes and failures of the past Presidential administration–and the potential successes and failures of the next. And what takes center stage? Stuff like this.

It’s a stupid argument: Fact is that neither of those bamas–or, really, anyone who can afford to run for the U.S. presidency–can claim to live (currently, that is) like most of the people they’d like to rule. Still, for the most part, campaigns spin away, doing their level best to prove that their candidate can–you know–like, eat with the people.

Maybe it’s ’cause he’s pretty much guaranteed to be re-elected whenever he runs. Maybe it’s ’cause not a single fucking soul on the face of this planet believes that the Kennedy family parties somewhere south of the highest possible tax bracket. Maybe no one gives a fuck. Any of these reasons could explain the silly Edward Kennedy video tribute that the Dems ran on Monday night at their convention. But that doesn’t change the fact that–in its role (after all, everything at one of these get-togethers is geared toward getting one particular duder elected) as a part of an event that’s supposed to convince the U.S. masses that the party throwing the…uh, party is the one that they can most identify with–the thing was a total failure.

Attention the duders responsible for crafting that fucker: A yachtsman yachting on his yacht is not the picture of your average U.S. citizen. So, you know, like, STFU.

‘Cause the Editorial Staff Here at Um Observes With the Perspective of a 6 Year-Old

So. Just in case this hasn’t yet been pointed out: Anyone notice how the Web 2.0 section of Barack Obama’s campaign web site is called MyBO (scroll down a little, it’s on the right)?

Apparently none of their super-duper web designers has–or, presumably, someone would have raised a stink. (Zing!)

Op-Cred?

We here at Um like to pride ourselves on our ability to make something out of nothing. Indeed, in these times of ever-increasing demand for content, we’d assume that this skill is a must-have for anyone interested in writing anything that could be described as timely and original.

But this? This is crap. And though we’re quite positive that our counterparts over at the NYT are engaged in not much more than an attempt to echo certain 2.0 trends, we’re still pretty sure that such efforts should not include the musings of Doug Glanville.

Like, yeah: Literacy and sports? These things should totally share a healthy relationship. But its development should probably not be hashed out in the editorial pages of what’s supposed to be the paragon of American print journalism.

Anyhow.

Don’t Fuck Up

The ever-slacking editorial staff here at Um would like to urge those of you that live in Boston to go see this on Friday night.

Seriously. Don’t fuck up.

Our friends at the Washington City Paper offer you this preview of the version of the show that’s happening in D.C.

Seriously?

Don’t fuck up.

Mr. Bean of the Air Force?

Okay. So it’s pretty clear that some members of the U.S. Military are pretty bad at taking care of nuclear weapons. And it’s pretty clear that that shit makes for some pretty entertaining (if totally frightening) reporting. But c’mon duders at the Guardian, can you really not come up with something better than “Mr. Bean of the Air Force” when referring to their bungling?

Apparently not.

This has prompted the editorial staff here at Um to ask our eight loyal readers if maybe they can do better. Winner gets a beer.

Blog of War

The editorial staff here at Um realizes that we’ve been slacking. We realize that, thanks to our slowly eroding news-reading habits, we may have missed a few things these past few weeks.

But, like, what the fuck is this? Dateline? Headline? Byline? Like, since when does the New York Times allow it’s blogging contributors to publish stuff that looks just like much of the rest of the real (online) paper? Maybe since LexisNexis started including blogs in its news search?

Okay. Fine: Bloggers are WAY better at breaking news than their analog counterparts. And–fine–maybe it is about time that all of nerddom starts treating these fine folks with the same amount of respect afforded their print-ier counterparts. But couldn’t such acceptance only be signaled by some kind of act on the part of some of the more major publications to stop designating the work of some of it’s correspondents as different than that of their colleagues. Like, shouldn’t they just get rid of that whole blogger-as-a-description-of-some-of-their-employees thingy?

Oh right: Motherfuckers gotta pretend like their still relevant. Well, if any of you fancy newspaper publishers wanna throw some dough my way (you know, like before you’re totally out of the stuff), I’d be happy to sign-up for a stint of slightly-less-than-professional reporting.

South Africa to Legalize Hooking for Soccer Players? Save Um Blog?

When, this morning, the editorial staff here at Um went a-searchin’ for column fodder, we figured the process would be something of an ordeal: It’s been over a week, we’re a bit rusty–and, frankly, we’ve come to the conclusion that academic writing is rotting our brains (thus making it impossible for us to witticize with any kind of agility).

So. Imagine our surprise. Imagine our delight. Imagine our internal high-fiving when, upon opening our RSS aggregator, this sucker popped up. For those of you still unwilling to click off of Um, the pertinent stuff is contained in this quote (courtesy of the BBC):

“In January, MP George Lekgetho called for prostitution to be legalised during the [2010 World Cup]. ‘It is one of the things that would make it a success,’ he said.”

Okay. Yes, George, this could be a total boon for yr country’s economy. And it could be a TOTAL disaster for the health of the rest of the world.

Is Lekgetho a mad genius looking to grab some revenge? We here at Um would be mightily entertained if that were the case.

(BTW: This is what you get when you Google Soccer Hooligans)

Boo Shitty Band Map, Hooray Return of Um!

Hi there. We here at Um are totally sorry for our recent erratic posting. And we promise that, as soon as we can, we’ll return to regularly entertaining you with our wit and charm and whathaveyou. But for now, irregular doses of our brilliance will have to suffice.

And that brings us to this:

Good idea, right? Like, geography plays a ginormous role in defining some music scenes–and what better way to illustrate this than with a GIANT INTERACTIVE MAP? Trouble is that the folks who put this thing together decided to go for superlatives (best band, best solo artist, best up-and-comer) rather than attempt any kind of in-depth study. The result? A totally half-assed effort that misses big swathes (say LA Punk, Olympia Riot Grrl, Chicago Blues…and the motherfucking Butthole Surfers) of way important musical history.

Worse, everything on here is so effin’ predictable that it leaves the editorial staff here at Um a-wondering if the thing really serves any purpose at all.

We here at Um realize that doing a comprehensive version of this would have been a pretty hefty task. But we feel like it woulda been worth it; as is, this thing is…well, you know.