Here’s a telling exchange between a Chronicle reader and the newspaper’s little-seen reader representative:
READER: Do Chron editors read this column for suggestions/input? I would just like to mention that I do not enjoy the “party reports” that are featured on the front page. It seems that every day, or several times a day, the headlining online news is a picture of people in bars. I would like to see more news stories features, with articles written by your writers, rather than photo albums of barflies.
READER REP: Sorry, that’s not going to happen. Whenever chron.com features one of those party reports, the traffic spikes like crazy. You appear to be one of the few readers that doesn’t care for that coverage.
The second-rate newspaper frequently provides intelligent people with all sorts of reasons to mock it, but that crystal-clear statement of the local Hearst daily’s online journalistic priorities ranks among the best.
