Orange Reaction
January 29th, 2007 by Wayne Garcia in The Morning Papers
Some interesting reactions on Orange ceasing publication:
- The party line.
- Deggans throws a shout-out our way (thanks) but cautions that Orange’s demise isn’t a sign that other free weeklies can’t work. He’s right.
- Orange freelancer and homeless-hater-turned-homeless-cigarette-purchaser Rachel* writes that editor Mitzi Gordon was not-too-smart and suckered into trying to print the article that got her fired. Rachel* then calls freelancer Greg Caracci, who wrote the story in question, unprofessional. Caracci fights back in a long comment. You gotta love it.
- BrotherFire takes issue with the fact that we (CL) have "ads for whores."
January 29th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
About BrotherFire’s comment:
Other alt-weeklies have dropped “whore” ads altogether because they essentially cater to an older demographic — men 50 and up who can’t get laid, not exactly the young readership weeklies vie for.
Here’s an AAN blurb about Boston’s Weekly Dig, who dropped the ads not too long ago:
“Jeff Lawrence (pictured) could care less that some law enforcement officials think escort ads are a front for prostitution. According to a recent piece in E&P, the president of Boston’s Weekly Dig decided to remove the ads from his paper because he thought they were attracting too many 50-year-old white male suburbanites. “It’s no different than if we started running ads for Geritol or Depends adult diapers,” Lawrence tells E&P. “In terms of attracting readers, content is one thing, but the advertisements, too, are huge part of determining whether your readers are going to respond to your paper.” Lawrence says the Dig also is considering whether to drop a couple of other categories that may not belong in the paper. “Advertisers like that you’re protecting your demographic,” he says, “They say, ‘You’re willing to give up revenue to stay on mission — that’s fantastic.’”
January 29th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Wayne, I see you brought your “A game” on.
Alon Levy did a critique at Lindsay Beyerstein’s blog. All her blogger should read it. This is my favorite bad pieice of bad writing Alon pulled from the infamous homeless beat down post.
“the light at Mastry’s flickered an excellent, sexy pale blue onto her hair, like she was in a video game where she was, like, the leader of a gang of fierce cougar-girl mutants or something.”
http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2007/01/blogger_rachel_.html#comment-27993149
January 29th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
“BrotherFire takes issue with the fact that we (CL) have “ads for whores.”
Wayne, are you implying the barechested guy, holding the football, really isn’t a massage therapist?
January 30th, 2007 at 8:54 am
No, turns out he is an aromatherapist.
January 30th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Matt — great post, thanks. But let me correct a perception that alt-weeklies exist to cater to younger audiences. Faux-alt weeklies (like the now defunct Orange) are an attempt by MSM companies to get a feeler into younger demographics. Alt publication audiences, however, shouldn’t be defined by age but by tolerance, openness to new ideas, care for community, activism, and (as the CL mission statement puts it) urban exploration.
This sidesteps the issue of whether alts should or shouldn’t be running adult-oriented advertising. Which really, I think, is more a moral argument than a demographic or financial one.
January 30th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
I can’t even remember the last time I had a decent massage with a happy ending. It’s been too long…
Concerning younger readership: Something I have yet to understand is how the MSM (assuming they get younger readers through faux-alts) hopes to get that same audience to read the regular daily paper. Is that even their goal? Do they expect kids to one day say “I’m too mature for Orange, so I’ll drop a quarter into this machine and buy the Trib”?
Seems like too much to hope for, especially if they’re going to be half-ass about it. If they were going to put that little effort into Orange, they shouldn’t have bothered making it a print publication and instead made it online-only.