Debra Pickett Blogs; World Yawns

By Aaron Bailey in News on Dec 28, 2005 7:27PM

It has been a while since we've read something from a major newspaper that caused us to repeatedly hit our head against the wall. Just that happened when we were introduced to the first blog from the Chicago Sun-Times.

We'll pause here for you to skim the first page of Debra Pickett's new blog. Go ahead... just watch your head.

See what we mean?

The Sun-Times hasn't had the greatest last couple of years: circulation scandals, financial problems, and the legal problems of Conrad Black.

Just last week they ceased publishing their "youth-oriented" Red Streak. And now they've infected us with Pickett's uninsightful banalities on a daily basis.

She might be a fine columnist, but writing a column of 750 words and daily blogging require two different strategies. She should use her blog to talk about mini-stories too short for a column, but still relevant enough to publish. She should use her blog to engage her readers in a dialogue about her latest column (see Mr. Zorn, for example). She should use her blog refute this Chicagoist post and tell us to f' off.

What puzzles us is why she's allowed to blog the first thought that pops into her head, all under the Sun-Times banner. We don't need to know about her husband's ex-girlfriend's cookie recipe or her accidental hangover.

(We won't even begin to dicuss how there are advertisements for Target within her editorial posts!)

We'd love to see S-T blog on topics like the Bulls or Chicago real estate or heck, even start a gossip blog from Michael Sneed. It'd take a fraction of the time and money they spent on the Red Streak to start some excellent blogs. So then why publish Debra's rants about cough drops?