If We Put A Naked Girl On Page 2, Will it Boost Our Circulation?

Our local Springfield, MA paper, The Republican, is a typical small-town publication. Its "A" section is full of wire-service news, and wire-service editorials, and wire-service gossip--occasionally a big scandal story about Springfield or a "human interest" story makes it above the fold. The "B" section consists of Local news for Chicopee and Holyoke--whatever's happening on the school board, who got busted for drugs, who got pulled over for going 100 mph on rt. 391, what the town fathers are deciding at the city council meetings, and quick reports on little town festivals (forget about any state coverage--we have to read the Boston Globe for that.) I rarely read The Republican's online counterpart masslive.com because it's unattractive and difficult to navigate, even for movie listings.

So, when I flipped the front page, and glanced the gossip column on Page 2, just to get the latest drunken celebrity stories, I got quite an eyeful:

Yes, that's a naked Kate Moss on the cover of September's Vanity Fair. Due out on Aug. 8. Guess I'm going to have to camp out at the Barnes & Noble for that one.

Guess there weren't enough words in today's drunken escapades of Lindsay Lohan and Mel Gibson (even with his supposed anti-Semitic remarks) and the editorial staff decided to flesh out the column with this tidbit from AP.

Is it really news that there's another naked celebrity on the cover of some glossy magazine?

But seriously, what does the Republican think it's doing by putting a pic like this on its second page? Are we trying to be hip and European out here? Or was it truly a lack of words on the two big drunken celebrity stories of the day that forced the Republican's editorial staff to fill its column space with the naked Moss?

The Republican is looking less and less relavent to life out here in Western Massachusetts. At least with the Sunday paper we get those nice glossy circulars and an occasional decent investigative piece. During the week, we just get insulted.

Journalism, citizen journalism, media