I must atone.
I must atone for what I did this morning when I came to the defense of the Tampa Bay Times’ Adam Smith.
I still feel icky for doing that.
Fortunately, I noticed something in yesterday’s Times that will serve as a good jumping off point.
This ad:
It’s a pretty harmless ad, one perfectly designed to fill space in the newspaper on a slow news day.
Obviously, the ad promotes columnist John Romano, who has done a very nice (and award-winning) job filling the shoes of Howard Troxler. Although he’s not the agenda-setter I’d love to see the Times’ lead columnist be, I’m a fan of Romano’s work — probably a big fan if I think about it. So good for Romano that the Times is promoting him.
What bothers me about this ad is that “PUBLISHED EXCLUSIVELY IN THE TAMPA BAY TIMES” line. Of course, the Tampa Bay Times columnist is published exclusively in the Tampa Bay Times!
This is as unnecessary as me commenting on a Facebook post of my wife and I that she kisses me exclusively. Of course, she does. But if I feel the need to have a disclaimer, I probably have a problem on my hands.
Likewise the Times thinking it necessary to declare that Romano IS ALL THEIRS indicates a certain level of insecurity.
Why not just write “Read Romano three times a week” or “In print and online” or something like that?
No, it’s all about it being “exclusive” — one of the worst catchwords in journalism.
Perhaps this is a way of saying Romano isn’t syndicated, therefore readers can only find him in the Times, but why would the newspaper tout that?
No, this ad is really a f–k you to the rest of the media world, just as are the op-eds that run in the Times that declare the author “wrote this exclusively for the Tampa Bay Times” (like this recent column by former Governor and U.S. Senator Bob Graham.)
This ad and those disclaimers are nothing more than a nana nana boo boo. How childish.
