Wuxtry! Wuxtry! Read All About It!

Those of us of a certain age may remember when this was the opening cry on "Big Town," a radio drama based on the glamor of the newspaper business, starring Edward G. Robinson as crusading editor Steve Wilson and somebody else as his star reporter and (one hopes) his main squeeze, Lorelei Kilbourne.

There was a time, indeed, when the newspaper life was considered high excitement, and this extended from the comic strip "Jane Arden" (a favorite of onetime Vancouver Sun fashion writer Kay Alsop) through a bowtied Bogart in "Deadline: USA" (with publisher Ethel Barrymore) to "All the President's Men," which sparked a rapid rush in applications to journalism schools. 

Now, newspapers are, if not passe, and not entirely moribund, certainly an endangered species, and many are making desperate and expensive attempts to connect with an audience.  The most recent example:  the re-design of the formerly austere Globe and Mail, which has moved to an explosion of color (warning:  do not attempt to read this paper during a hangover) and a coated stock that can be charitably described as repellent.

And the content?  We cannot report on this.  We were unable to pick up the paper.

Steve Wilson! Perry White! Ben Bradley! Bogey! Dammit, where are you? Fix this!