They recently FIRED half their writers and editors. The thinking was that they didn't need opinion columnists and pointless soft news. Several of their more questionable writers actually took off before they could be fired, including opinionated Shaun King and trivial Gersh Kuntzman.
Seems the paper could fire a few more. THIS is a headline??
The New York Daily News is supposedly going to stop losing money by assigning reporters to break worthy news stories of corruption. To dig deep as journalists. To avoid puff pieces and silliness in favor of using the power of the press to get answers to vital questions.
If you're going to have a human interest story, make it interesting. Find that kid coping with the life-threatening disease. Get that "feel good" vibe off a guardian reunited with her lost cat. Talk about the neighbors who worked together to save the playground.
Some twat collects autographs? THAT is a story?
Since the gay gay gay show is either sold out or closed or about to close, the point is NOT that these guys staged a revival of a guaranteed HIT featuring America's most fabulous GAY ACTOR.
Broadway is doing very well, thank you, by catering to affluent gays and idiot tourists. A short-run of "Waiting for Godot" or that rarity, a NEW drama, will succeed if it stars somebody who was once in a "Star Trek" or "Harry Potter" movie. But the majority of Broadway (and most certainly OFF BROADWAY) shows are not encouraged and don't get full page articles...because the space is wasted on ridiculous crap like this:
This is the EDITED version. There were a few extra windy paragraphs to this fartuous piece of fluff.
Publicists are paid to point time-wasters to non-stories: "Hey, you should go over to the hospital where MY CLIENT just autographed a guy's iron lung..." "I'm giving you an exclusive on MY CLIENT appearing at Barnes & Noble to sign her latest book..."
Writers no doubt get emails and letters from people with worthy stories to investigate: "Do you know the scandal of the fake Muhammad Ali autographs being hawked as real by a bogus company that tricked Ali into signing his name...to be duplicated?" "Can you expose how eBay does nothing about people selling Photoshop fake nudes of celebrities that have FORGED AUTOGRAPHS on them?"
Sadly, every day the trivial news remains fixated on what Kardashians do. Whenever there's a Comic Con (and there seems to be one every week now), the newspapers happily send a photographer to take pictures of all the happy idiots who put on costumes to escape the real world and sublimate the fact they are still virgins.
The stage door, once unknown down a dark alley on the side of a theater, is now regularly mobbed by idiots who desperately need AUTOGRAPHS on their Playbills and posters. What the HELL for? Why encourage this foolishness? Some pudge can frame a poster and say, "Look at THIS...I got EVERY autograph of EVERY cast member!"
What DOES that mean? It means "I was a pest." That's ALL it means. Can the pudge tell you what the play was about? Quote a line? Some of these clowns don't even buy a ticket to the show. They just join the mob hoping for the autograph. I know one actor who first asks, "Do I make this out "TO EBAY?" I recall Jackie Mason REFUSING to autograph things: "Did you see my show? Where's your Playbill? Where's your ticket stub? Why should I support you when you don't support me?"
I must add that Jackie sometimes made an exception. As he stood outside the theater (after waiting about 45 minutes in his dressing room, to discourage the autograph hounds), a boy of about 12 or 14 came up to him with a piece of paper and a pen. He'd been prompted by his father, who stood a safe distance away. "Can I have your autograph, Mr. Mason?" Jackie looked down, appraising him. "Did you see my show?" asked Jackie. The kid wasn't sure what to say. He didn't say anything. Jackie said, "OK, if you saw my show, what did I talk about?" The kid paused. "Jews?" Jackie laughed and signed the paper.
Yes, few autograph seekers just want the chance to meet a star, and seeing one is as memorable as glomming the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. Some use the moment of getting the autograph as an excuse to very nicely and politely say "I really enjoyed the show," or to mention a flattering detail of the performance, or something else the performer did. It's a mutual trade-off and natural.
Less natural is that way too many people are selling the autographs or are just "collectors" who want another one for their "collection" and shouldn't be encouraged or considered worth writing about in a newspaper. There's nothing special, ethical or magical about some fool getting an entire Playbill or poster signed by every cast member. There's something neurotic and alarming about the increasing need for people to dress up at "Comic Con" or stand in line and pay hundreds upon hundreds of dollars for a squiggle of ink on a piece of paper.
There's something very sad about a major New York newspaper ignoring hundreds of worthy stories from the wire services, and NOT assigning people to cover worthy "human interest" stories...and instead wasting space on what could be described as nothing but empty celebrity worship and ink gluttony.
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