D.C. jerks ruin stock market, Teixeira breaks record for nerds, racist Mount Carmel principal draws armed protest
Today's tabloids, August 3, 2011.
12:59 pm Aug. 3, 20111
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?
The New York Post: On the strength of columnist Steve Serby's exclusive interview with former Giants defensive end Michael Strahan, mostly, the Post takes today to remind readers of its claim to having "The Best Sports in Town."
The tagline, and its type treatment, a slab-serif the Post favors for such things throughout, is usually seen on the back page where the sports section is sold. Today, it's set over a red snipe in the upper-lefthand corner of a half-page block advertising Serby's interview. "Strahan: Pay Osi!" reads the yellow headline text next to a picture of Strahan's old teammate, Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora. Inside is a long interview in which Strahan characterizes his former teammate and old pal as being drastically underpaid at $41.35 million over seven years.
There's also scoreboard coverage of the Yankees' win over the Chicago White Sox yesterday, and another columnist saying that like Mark Sanchez, Rex Ryan has to be better in his third year with the Jets than he has been in years 1 and 2.
It's probably worth reminding people how much store the paper puts by its sports coverage, which along with Page Six and the business section are probably the reasons the most committed Post readers feel an allegiance to the paper. But I'm a little unclear who gets converted by it, or if it's just something worth doing every now and then when there's an opportunity, like a slow August news day.
How slow?
The creeping investigation into the "signals department" of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority continues, in which the Manhattan district attorney's office is looking into allegations that inspectors "routinely filed false reports that thousands of safety devices had been checked out."
Now another scandal has emerged: Division chief Patrick Sohan has been fired, after two weeks of suspension, when it was learned he got his son of the same name a job in the signals department based on false claims in his resume. The two together drew salary from the department totaling more than $200,000 a year. (The son has also been fired.) The investigation that resulted in their firings may yet be taken up by the D.A. as a criminal case. How important is the signals department to the safety of passengers? The signals are the only way trains "know" they are not on a collision course, or that the track switches ahead of them are not open, which would likely result in derailment.
"SON OF A SWITCH" reads the headline—get it?—in big black type, indicating it is the main front-page news story for today. "MTA big's subway-safety scam" reads the dek.
Put a bear on it! When the stock market drops, there's nothing like a picture of the famous bronze-finished bear statue, which is maybe less famous than his bull counterpart. "Wall Street rout" is all we get by way of introduction.
Daily News: Whereas the News goes big with it: A vertical three-fifths of the main-news sales space under the flag is taken up with a black field with a giant downward-pointing arrow in red, over which in knockout-white type are giant letters reading "GOOD JOB, GUYS!"
The "job" was the eleventh-hour avoidance of a credit downgrade, but the jittery process and the results that made nobody on the Hill happy apparently did not make Wall Street happy either. The day the vote went through and the debt-ceiling recap was signed by the president, instead of creating a stock rally, it resulted in yet another day of falling stock prices.
"Stocks tank for 8th day, after Congress fiddles on debt" reads the text. Of course, Wall Street has essentially formally said they're happy with the result; what happens on the trading floor is possibly a different story, and the next one to watch. I think it's probably creating a mountain out of a molehill: We'll be back up again, or if we're not it won't be because Congress has made too many promises to cut spending or keep tax-reductions in place. But it's an accurate reflection of the general political mood here, I think.
As always, a big news story that's not easy to illustrate (cf.: bears, arrows) needs pairing with something a little sexier, and so here's Mark Texeira at bat, on the occasion of his besting an old idol of his, Hall of Fame switch-hitter Eddie Murray. Murray had until last night held the record for most games in which he homered from both sides of the plate. Yesterday in Chicago, Texeira replaced him in the record books by doing so for the twelfth time in his career. "Double whammy," reads the oddly tilted yellow text over Texeira's legs. "Teix hits switch-hit HR mark as Yanks roll." Much better than the plain scoreboard listing on the Post front, which read just "Yankees 'rain' in Windy City." But maybe the record is for nerds?
Two stories about school get skyboxes. "POT PEEVE!" sells the story of 80-year-old Lillie Leon, fired from her job at a public school in Briarwood after officials charged that she refused to take her kindergartners to the bathroom. She's suing, saying that the school didn't listen to her when she complained of her classroom assignment that it was on the third floor, and clear across the school from the bathrooms, meaning she'd have to organize the bathroom breaks even though walking is hard for her.
On the other side of the fence is the story of Frank Borzellieri, whom the News revealed was back at work in the education sector, specifically at the Catholic school Our Lady of Mount Carmel in the Fordham section of the Bronx. You may remember him as the white supremacist who's written for American Renaissance, who as a school-board member called for banning books including a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. that he called "anti-American," who called for the removal of all openly gay teachers and administrators, and who wrote in his 2004 book Don't Take it Personally: Race, Immigration, Crime and Other Heresies that "diversity is a weakness" and that a "New Dark Age" was approaching as a result of the increasing non-white population of the U.S.
But in this case it's not the educator who got the boot: It was 54-year-old Juan Varela, who stood up and interrupted a Mass at Mount Carmel to deliver a rant to the congregation about the school's hiring of Borzillieri, and who was dragged out by cops and charged with disorderly conduct and … criminal possession of a weapon! (The News doesn't say much about why, according to police, he had a knife on him?) Presumably there are better ways to clear this matter up.
Observations: "SON OF A SWITCH" is an edifying government-mischief tale, sure. And this interview with Strahan is a good sale. But altogether the Post looks cluttery, like it's getting some business done that doesn't have much to do with me.
At least both of the somewhat boring main stories on the front of the News have a little punch to them. And somehow the News, with its four stories coming in only one less than the Post, still manages to feel like it's got a lot of stories inside today, even if none of them is a Pulitzer contender.
The Post seems to just be saying, "Hey, there's nothing else going on. Flip to the Sports section first!"
No thanks.
Winner: Daily News.
Why didn't the tabs emulate every other newspaper and web site with the stock photo of the floor trader looking miserable and exhausted, possibly craning his neck at a big board with lots of numbers on it? Or at least imitate the NY Times graphic showing the increasing drop during the day, maybe with some nice red ink and arrow-shaped dynamism? Instead the whole "GOOD JOB, GUYS!" over a fat down arrow is even more dull and abstract than necessary.
And why not sell more doomsday here? Some "double dip," some "erasing the whole year," some "there goes your retirement, average reader who does not follow the stock market closely." It might not be accurate, but as you say, neither is the angle the News did take -- and theirs is more boring.