This just in from The Plain Dealer: kittens are cute.
The PD’s always had a
penchant for stating the obvious. But today, the paper snatched their own cake when they smacked Northeast Ohio in the face with a front-page barrage of the widely known. Elizabeth Auger’s report: “Why cities still matter.” The sub-headline: “Proximity to skills, people, action are what businesses crave.”
The PD seems to be suggesting that businesses need people. But so many questions remain unanswered. For one, what in the heck are businesses, anyway? How could the paper leave that “Businesses sell things” paragraph on the copy-room floor?
“The numbers reflect the continuing potency not only of Cleveland,” writes Auger, the earth shattering beneath her keyboard, “but also of large metropolitan areas nationwide.” Los Angeles and Chicago are alive and well, she claims, thus urging the citizens of those cities: do not trade in that trading-floor vest for a pair of overalls just yet. Allow the PD to make the case that silos are not, in fact, the new skyscrapers.
But just when the reader is starting to understand that cities, like, do things, Auger sucker-punches us with this sub-section: “But all is not so rosy.” Turns out Cleveland has major problems. She writes — and we don’t endorse the following wild claims — that our metropolis is suffering from a weak economy and a brain drain. The average reader browsing the paper will surely call “bullshit” on that one.
Word is,
The PD is currently feuding over what to feature next. One side of the newsroom favors “Terrorists Hate USA.” The other faction is dead set on “CEOs Like Money.” --
Gus Garcia-Roberts