March 18th, 2005

Filed under:
Vancouver
7 Comments »

If I Had a Naughty Parrot…

I might line its cage with the Vancouver Metro to punish the offending bird.

Unfortunately, the new 16-page daily is pretty much what we expected: extremely short articles, tons of wire content and (as Roland points out), totally soulless. Even the comics are unfunny. I very surprised at the lack of advertising in the inaugural issue. Excluding self-promoting pieces, there’s less than three pages of ads out of the 16.

Roland’s also correct to highlight the shortcomings of their website. I had similar reactions:

And the website is more evidence that this is really a Toronto paper (even though Metronews is part of a world wide empire of daily papers run by a Swedish company in partnership with some Canadian papers). It has the Toronto weather forecast and Toronto keywords (how 1999, doesn’t Metronews know that search engines don’t care about meta tags?)!. How about having a Vancouver website, say at vancouver.metronews.ca with an RSS feed, prominent Vancouver content and the Vancouver weather forecast?

The lack of RSS feed is particularly shameful. Nearly every major (and most minor) media outlet in the world has adopted RSS, Why can’t the Metro?

Comments: 7 Responses so far

alexis
March 18th, 2005
11:27 am

Metro was hiring in Vancouver. When I saw the first edition, I was very glad that I didn’t apply. (I didn’t apply initially due to lack of car.) I wouldn’t have enjoyed writing for them, because their stories are so short and I prefer more in-depth reporting. It would have been similar to writing ad copy. I know beggars can’t be choosers, but still…

[Reply]

harp
March 18th, 2005
6:50 pm

the Metro has this number puzzle on the third last page that OWNS. I do it every day. While at work. Bored. But it still OWNS.

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Jan Karlsbjerg
March 19th, 2005
12:29 am

Saw this category of “newspaper-lets” in every city in Denmark for years - Copenhagen even has (had?) two competing free papers. They are often published by the local news paper monopoly in direct competition with their own (non-free) offerings. The papers represent extra ad revenue, of course, but they’re also a (desperate) ploy from newspaper folks to get people to reconnect with physical newspapers as a source of news.

These free newspapers are deliberately thin and crappy (very limited money devoted to writing and editing, almost pure selection of wire stories), and don’t expect the site to get RSS or anything like that — that’s not what the product is for.

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Arjun Singh
March 20th, 2005
1:46 am

I haven’t seen Metro Vancouver yet but if they give the new editor a little leeway, I see good things. Gord Kurenoff is a good friend of mine, was the editor of Kamloops This Week up until a week or so ago. He is a good, community minded person with a bizarre and endearing sense of humour. Hope he gets some freedom with his new gig.

[Reply]

Gord Kurenoff
March 20th, 2005
2:17 pm

Thanks for the kind comments about Metro, the free daily launched to give people a quick read in the morning.
I hope your parrot, or whatever other naughty thing you play with, enjoys the Monday-to-Friday offering.
Who says it’s not good for anything?!!!
Hopefully, we’ll be able to convert you as we improve and become bigger and more localized.
In the meantime, enjoy your blogging. You have a neat site and I’ll enjoy reading it and the many opinions expressed in this wonderfuly world of free speech we live in!
Cheers!
Gord Kurenoff
Managing Editor
Metro Vancouver

[Reply]

Shay
March 25th, 2005
10:18 am

Hey Gord…

Maybe it’s a good thing that the Metro Newspaper is placed in Darren’s pet Parrot’s cage…are they not known for repeating?
I’d say that’s good free advertising…
Metro News…BROCK!
Metro News…BROCK!
Metro News…BROCK!
How Brilliant…ha ha!
Best to you and all staff members!
Shay

[Reply]

Bob
May 17th, 2006
7:40 am

I like parrots :)

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