Friday, July 10, 2009

Is Velocity next? We can only hope.

It looks as though the handwriting may be on the wall for Velocity, which only a couple years back was the Courier-Journal's big ticket attempt to kneecap the Louisville Eccentric Observer.

Velocity's congenital avoidance of meaningful content isn't necessarily an excuse for it to die an agonizing and painful death, even if it's my best reason for the same. After all, these are the people who did light beer reviews for the clueless. I've never forgiven them for pandering like that, even if a couple of writers were eventually found who showed an understanding of craft beer.

The point to me is that embarrassing meaninglessness is so readily available these days, and from so many different electronic and computerized medias, that there's no reason for the target demographic to actually grab a hard copy of the rag -- and that's where the crucial advertisements are located.

But we'll see. Perhaps Velocity will survive the latest Gannett cuts to yawn, pander and be gratuitous another day.

Hard Hits at Gannett in Cincy, by Rick Redding (The 'Ville Voice blog).

While we’re waiting for word about layoffs at the Courier-Journal, Gannett’s operation in Cincinnati is being hit hard. The 10-person staff at
CiN Weekly, the weekly entertainment paper (Velocity equivalent) was let go, as was the Enquirer’s editorial page editor.

The weekly is apparently being
re-branded as MetroMix, a move already made in other Gannett markets, including Indianapolis and Nashville. Officially, Gannett is calling the new Cincy rag “the premier printed snapshot of all things entertainment that younger adults need to plan their free time.”

In other words, “the best we can do without any staff members to, you know, actually write stuff.”

This cheerful sentence is from
CityBeat, a Cincy website following the layoffs:

“Gannett already has made that change in the Indianapolis and Nashville markets, replacing local publications with one standard weekly that uses copy produced from various corporate sites nationwide.”

The story notes that staff members have been placing MetroMix stickers on CiN Weekly distribution boxes. In all, 100 jobs are expected to be lost in Cincinnati.

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