"NEWS & INFORMATION IS THE NEW ROCK N ROLL"

Tribune’s Chief Innovation Officer Lee Abrams gets a lot of crap for his energetic memos to Tribune employees.  The memos inevitably leak to Romenesko, where journalists who are about to be unemployed can laugh at that crazy guy who dared come over from radio. But while much of what he says sounds crazy, it actually makes a lot of sense. Take this, from a March 2008 memo.

THE ONLINE ARCHIVES! These are amazing! Yet, a mystery…hidden.

It sounds weird, but there are so many layers in it. Just looking at the memo while writing this post, I realized there’s nothing keeping the Voice from doing a “This Day in Georgetown History” kind of thing. Link back to our archives, get a little sidebar widget, and we get more pageviews. Abrams’s memos are gold mines of inspiration, or Zen koans.

Of course, he’s still a ridiculous character. He looks like a graying Michael Medved, and much of what he says is terrible (emphasis added):

*CASUAL STYLE: What with the suits and ties? I’m not suggesting sloppy…but business casual…maybe even eccentric as the Crime expert could be in a Columbo styled rumpled sweater.

But at least he’s trying! It seems like everyone trying to make reporting profitable again are focusing on dead models (online subscriptions) or things no one cares about (Soundslides). I’ll have a post on my favorite Abrams memos soon, and if things go well he may become this blog’s mascot.

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