Pulp Friction

Ladies and gentleman, we once again have a newspaper war! Flip through today’s Toronto section in the National Post and feast on extra pages, newish columnists (welcome back Gord McLaughlin, we missed you) and actual new columnists (The Big Picture: inside the art scene with Catherine Osborne). There appears to be much more life and heft in the section today (either that or I’m in a good mood and giving it a bigge hug for no reason) and a few new packaged bits, including The Burning Question. Most importantly, the section looks fun and inviting, unlike the debut Globe Toronto section, which looks more capital "S" serious (they trumpet the "one-two punch" of John Barber and Blatchford on page one) and spends great lengths to explain its reason for being:

eatdrinkgoseedobookhearplaytrybuy

The Globe always seems to focus group or overthink its lighter bits, making the end result feel like a scientist trying the explain the physics of mirth. The Toronto section of the Post, meanwhile, probably errs too much on the side of fluff first, think later, but in this case, I think it’s going to work to their advantage. I will assess one demerit to their tally sheet, however, for their page A2 lameness in explaining the changes:

"Because periodic change is healthy, we've introduced several new features in today's Toronto section that we'd like to tell you about."

Right. Sure. Uh-huh.