- Pick a topic that will cause controversy. Say, Manny Ramirez’s drug suspension.
- Come up with a gimmick to bring in the links and hits. Say, “…I’m giving my World Series tickets this year to the person who writes my favorite 50-word sermon to Ramirez.”
- Get Bill Plaschke to ghost-write your column for you.
- Edit Bill’s first draft to increase the moral indignation and delete some of the carriage returns.
- Publish column and watch the hits roll in.
I would expect more out of Steve Lopez. Unfortunately, he decided to take the easy way out. Loafing his way across the outfield, as it were.
Maybe it’s the vicodin talking, but this whole scheme strikes me as insincere. If you felt that bad about buying those tickets (and somehow calculating you were supporting Manny by doing so), how about donating those tainted tickets to be auctioned off for charity? You could even make it a steroid-awareness organization if you felt like making a real statement.
Think about how much of a bigger splash you could have made by doing things that way. You’d get all kinds of press online and in the real world. Plus you’d be making a difference about a cause that you apparently care a lot about. And getting even more of those precious hits and links.
Something to mull over in the next columnist meeting.
The first big city paper that stops trying to cover the world and focuses in detail on what’s happening in city hall and the councilmembers’ offices will get my subscription money. I suspect newspapers might just be viable and escape their fast-approaching extinction if they would wake up and realize Jane Q Reader is getting her national and world news online and in radio and TV soundbites.
I bet the first paper to do so would also win a Pulitzer.
Alasdair, I see your point but is it possible to write in detail about a city hall and council whose members do nothing all day…and don’t start until noon?
I agree with expecting more from Steve Lopez. After reading his words, I checked to make sure it was the same Steve Lopez whose homeless violinist story motivated me to start doling out my loose change to anyone standing at a freeway ramp!
I was only half-kidding about the Bill Plaschke connection — it feels like one of his pieces.
[...] up on the recent Steve Lopez post, “How to generate hits in these troubled times”, Lopez announced his tickets were going to be awarded to a local firefighter. Of course. The [...]
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