Saturday, June 20, 2009

Now that's news you can use

Haaretz, Israel's oldest newspaper, let poets and other writers take the helm for a day about two weeks ago.

According to The Jewish Daily Forward, "This was a near complete replacement of the newspaper itself. Save for the sports section and a few other articles, all the reporters’ notebooks were handed over to poets and novelists, both bestselling and up-and-coming. Their articles filled the pages, from the leading headline to the weather report."

Said Haaretz editor-in-chief Dov Alfon, “Thirty-one writers decided, what are the real events of the day?” he mused. “What is really important in their eyes? They wrote about it, and our priorities as journalists were suddenly shaken by this.”

As Slog's Paul Constant mused: "Maybe that could save journalism."

No comments: