Thursday, February 14, 2008

Question Of The Week: What Would You Be Running On The Front Page?

We wrote yesterday about The Commercial Appeal using some of Memphis’ most precious real estate – its front page – for its weekly “single mother counter.”

We also suggested some other facts, trends and information that we thought merited front page attention. Some of ours include:

• The number of new jobs that don’t pay a living wage.

• The number of students in Memphis City Schools who drop out or who get a degree but still aren’t proficient on state tests.

• The number of college-educated 25-34 year-olds who are moving out of Memphis compared to the number moving in.

• The increase in the average salary of Memphis workers.

• The gap between the average income of an African-American and a white Memphian.

So, here’s the question of the week:

If you were the editor of The Commercial Appeal, what statistic would you be running on the front page instead of the number of single mothers?

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd settle for real news.

Anonymous said...

The number of stories we're reading that are bought and paid for by advertisers or placed by the publisher to curry favor from his CEO buddies.

Tom Guleff said...

The number of hits on my blog site.

:)

Anonymous said...

The number of musicians who can quit their second jobs to make a living playing their music.

Then we'll know the Music Foundation is for real.

Anonymous said...

The number of mothers who aren't living in welfare any more because we did something to get them out.

Harvey said...

The # of hyperbolic proclamations our local government makes per day divided by the actual # they follow through on. The resulting integer is known as the Stark/Crump ratio and if it goes above 13, we need to shut it down and move to Mississippi.

Anonymous said...

The cost of sprawl and our carbon footprint as a county.

Anonymous said...

these folks seem to have an interesting take on countable things:

http://www.worldometers.info/

Smart City Consulting said...

fieldguide: We love that site. What three would you select if you could only have three?

Anonymous said...

i like what anonymous (anonymi?) 8:23 and 10:22 a.m. each said.

or, how about the number of days most CA employess have gone without a raise? Must be about 2,000 by now, and they wouldn't have to use a magic number, they could use a real one.

Anonymous said...

A tally of bodyguards so we'll know how many new deputy directors we can expect.

Anonymous said...

Number of working poor.

Anonymous said...

Odds between inner city kid getting killed compared to graduated from U of M.

kristin said...

How about "Whatever happened to...Jack Eaton?" I mean, if they are truly going to print "single mother" tally (and help me out here, are they really? I am still living out of town and don't see the print edition) for all the city to enjoy, I'd be much more thrilled with this.

Or if they insist on printing this sort of inflammatory crap, how about some informative follow up articles on local social service agencies and hospital programs that work hard to help towards change. 'Informative' being the key word here, because if I have to read yet another story on Youth Villages Soup Sunday, I'll do something drastic!

Anonymous said...

the amount of money spent talking about single mothers compared to the amount actually spent on doing something about it

Anonymous said...

How about the number of guys who impregate these girls and the amount of child support that they don't pay?