Do you know what RedEye is?
You could be excused if you didn’t. I sure didn’t,
until this summer. RedEye is a fairly new, 25 cent tabloid in
Chicago that defines its mission as: “To deliver a
distinctive and credible daily news report ““ in a concise,
commuter friendly format ““ that informs, entertains,
interests, provokes and is relevant to Chicago’s young city
dwellers.”
That actually sounds something like The Daily Bruin’s
mission statement ““ except for maybe the part about Chicago
and being “commuter friendly.” But that’s about
where the similarities end.
RedEye is what it would look like if you let MTV run a
newspaper. It’s got a lot of flash, a lot of pizzazz, but
goes a bit skimpy on the content. One of its latest issues
dedicates most of its front page to a story about jeans. Another
part blares the tabloid’s coverage of American Idol
tryouts.
Sound fascinating? The folks at RedEye ““ and their parent
company, the Chicago Tribune ““ sure hope so, because you are
their target audience. What makes RedEye unique in the world of
journalism is that it is the newest attempt by professional
reporters and editors to get those pesky 18 to 34-year-olds to read
a newspaper.
According to surveys, our age demographic is rapidly ditching
newspapers for television news and the Internet. In fact, most
young people would rather get their news from The Daily Show than
anywhere else. That’s bad news for journalists not named Jon
Stewart, and there’s a lot of people scheming up ways to
reverse the trend.
I don’t have anything against RedEye per se; after all, it
is all the way in Illinois, so it won’t be much competition
for The Bruin. But what bugs me about it is that it assumes it
knows what our generation wants to hear ““ and it’s
getting it wrong.
Among many so-called adults bent on tapping into the youth
market, there seems to be a belief that we have to be talked down
to. We’re widely seen as apathetic about anything and
everything, and in order to get our attention, they follow one
mantra: make it short, make it shiny, make it stupid.
Not so for The Bruin.
We’re not here to talk down to you (though once in a
while, we might talk back). We’re not here to indoctrinate or
convert you to a particular way of thinking. We’re not even
here to tell you what we think is important. We’re here to
serve you, the reader, the college student.
There are plenty of other news outlets that will cover foreign
wars and presidential elections better than us. But there
isn’t another newspaper in the country where UCLA students
can get equal play next to the big-shots.
And there isn’t another forum in the world devoted
exclusively to hearing the concerns of this university. Want to
know what’s going on around here every day? Look no
further.
Does The Bruin know what our generation wants to hear? No. We
get it wrong sometimes too. But we get it wrong because we
don’t always know what you want to hear about.
So let us know. Come talk to our reporters and editors when you
think we should be on to something. When we make a mistake, let us
know so we can correct it. And if you want your voice heard, send
us a line.
As a reporter and editor, I’ve met a lot of people who
want to push their agenda on me. They’re missing the point.
The Bruin isn’t here to be a political tool, and we’re
not interested in being an advertisement.
Unless you want to talk about you, and what you care about. Then
we’re interested.
Proctor is the 2005-2006 editor in chief. His e-mail is
cproctor@media.ucla.edu and this year he’ll be living in 118
Kerckhoff.