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Revisiting the LAT Front Page
We've written about it before — how the LA Times Column One feature regularly disrupts our morning newspaper time.
The stories are rarely more than well-written fluff, like, say for instance today's story on Czech marijuana. (Aside: What?) The sad part is, we're equally flabbergasted by the stories every single day; eastern European mary jane is more important than 90% of the subject matter covered.
So here's an idea from today's suggestion box, courtesy of the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison. The newspaper is going to allow its web readers to pick one of the front-page stories for the next day. Our guess is they'll probably select an equal mix of feature stories, profiles, and breaking news — but on the topic they want. And this isn't some stunt by a small-circulation, joke of a newspaper — the Journal has a readership of well over 100,000.
Their web audience is probably much smaller...but seeing as how the LA Times is refocusing on the web, and already has a sizable online base, the Page One interweb poll seems like a really good experiment.
Seriously, anything's better than this.
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