Six-shooters and slay suspects, plus a tabloid app!
Today's tabloids, Oct. 15, 2010.
10:43 am Oct. 15, 20102
Each day, the New York tabloids vie to sell readers at the newsstands on outrageous headlines, dramatic photography, and, occasionally, great reporting. Who is today's winner?
Daily News: Another ALCS series, another Daily News pullout takes over the cover. At least this time it's a real photo of starting pitcher C.C. Sabathia looking intent in mid-pitch. "SADDLE UP," reads the main hed: this series is against Texas, so the reference is to horses. It's barely a joke. "CC & Yanks set to take it to Texas in Game 1" reads the rather literal dek. It's all fine enough. More tabloidy is the story that gets a light blue strip across the bottom of the page: "COP SHOOTS COOT WHO SOUGHT LOOT." The 69-year-old convicted bank-robber, released yesterday after serving a sentence for a string of bank robberies in the Southwest, tried to rob a customer-service desk at a midtown bank wielding a steak knife. It didn't work out, and much of what was remarked upon both by police and passersby was the folly of the crime: he was chased into Penn Station where he encountered a routine "police surge" related to anti-terror measures. He was shot in the leg.
The New York Post: The Post has a lot more fun with its pullout this morning. Picturing Jeter instead of Sabathia (the more newsy starting pitcher gets the back page; the more famous face gets the front) wielding two six-shooters and a 5-gallon (?) hat with the Yankees logo emblazoned on the front, he's looking very Bonanza beneath comic-book-style text reading "TEXAS THROWDOWN." You get the idea that this thing might be fun, despite the promise of "IN-DEPTH STATS." Their pullout is only 16 pages, compared to the News' 24, but whether that is a measure of the relative success of the advertising in the pullout sections isn't clear; the sell to the reader is still strong.
But the Post doesn't give the whole page over to the Yankees, fronting the story of the Staten Island man caught trying to fly to Beijing. Police sought him in connection with the murder of his parents in the Annadale section of Staten Island; neighbors are telling the press the son had been diagnosed a schizophrenic. He's being detained in Israel. "SON'S FATAL RAGE" reads the headline, which appears to have rendered a verdict slightly in advance of the police; "SI man flees to Israel after mom-dad slay."
And finally, the Post introduces its Ipad app—"Download now!" reads the ad for the product, which we'll take a look at later today (stay tuned!)
Observations: It's too bad, for our purposes, when the papers front with a sports pullout. You can't penalize, because it's a perfectly plausible sale. But it's almost impossible not to give the win to the paper that also manages to get something else done on the cover without compromising the sale of the pullout.
Winner: The New York Post.
Ditto the Observation, but the Post also put a little more creative oomph into it.
Yeah, not only does the Post do something else, but it promotes the sports pullout SOOOO much better.