The Shape of Things to Come...?

The other Hearst newspaper in Town, the weekly Greenwich Citizen, has suddenly blossomed into a large tabloid format. This puzzled your scribe greatly, until he checked out Chris Fountain's fabulous blog, which you can read for yourself at: http://christopherfountain.wordpress.com/.

Yes, folks, there's a method in the seeming madness here. When - not if, mind you - the Local Rag, aka Yellowwich Time, finally fades into the mists of history, what will happen to the local Friday real estate section with all the ads? Bingo! Hearst will merely switch them over to the Citizen, which, as it happens, is also datelined on Fridays.

Your scribe finds this an ingenious solution. The soon-to-be-late-unlamented Yellowwich Time will be replaced with a regional edition of the Connecticut Post, and the pretty pictures of the houses will now fit quite nicely into the weekly Citizen.

One imagines that the folks at Hearst are patting themselves on the back at this clever journalistic arabesque. And your scribe hereby offers them a congratulatory pat on the back as well. Nicely done!

The Local Rag Rolls Out a Retread...

Change, it seems, is the only constant at the Local Rag, aka Yellowwich Time. Having already announced that they will be cleaning house between now and April 1st, the Hearst Corporation is further roiling the waters by bringing back a veteran hack who was downsized over a year ago. What gives?

Bruce Hunter has long been tied to the coattails of recently-fired editor Joe Pisani, and was one of his chief underlings in the "See no evil, write no evil" school of Greenwich journalism. One wonders if perhaps Joe may have thrown him to the wolves last year in a desperate attempt to save his own job. Well, it didn't work, and now for some reason Hearst has decided to bring Hunter back to carry on the Pisani tradition.

One is tempted to surmise that Hunter comes cheaper than Pisani did, and that this is simply another cost-cutting move on the part of a dying newspaper. But whatever the reason for the change, one thing is sure to remain constant: the indescribably pathetic writing, the slanted coverage, and the ongoing failure to report the real news in our fair Town.

Yes, folks, the masthead of Yellowwich Time will still remain yellow, with perhaps a bit of grizzled gray mixed in to match the color of Bruce Hunter's beard. And so the soap opera continues...who knows, at this rate Hearst may even bring back Joe Pisani, no doubt at a quarter of his former salary. Stay tuned!