Would you care?

Once upon a time newspapers viewed their front pages as a way to guide people into their newspapers. In fact, comics were often wrapped around the Sunday papers since they were high readership items. Editors and Publishers used front pages and headlines to make their newspapers interesting to readers.

That was then and this is now. The Richmond Time-Dispatch covered its front page with an ad. When someone complained, the publisher blithely blew them away telling Poynter's Jim Romanesko that "the reaction here is a real snoozer." I suspect that's because most people threw away the paper thinking it was just more of the trash that appears on our doorsteps or in our mail.

Or that they're so used to being abused by publishers that they don't care any more, and are too busy reading real content on their iPads to care.