In an effort to compete with the relatively new, tabloid-style Baltimore "Examiner", the Baltimore Sun has launched its own new paper, inexplicably called "b".

Its first cover story? "High Class Hooking," which--like all its stories--is about the length of a blog post and delivers the shocking insight that some women become call girls for--gasp!--the money! This is the COVER STORY. It makes the Examiner look like Pulitzer material. In fact, the paper even rips off the Examiner for other "scooops," rehashing that same old fraudulent parking ticket story.

Now, the article published by The Sun about this new venture (how's that for synergy for ya--advertise your new paper in your old paper!) says that the new paper is aimed at 18-34 year olds. Since I'm edging out of that desirable demographic, it may be that I'm just too old to understand why "b" is interesting--or even why anyone would call their paper "b". (I mean--b? How are they going to get any search engine traction with a name like that?)

But I refuse to believe that today's young people are really so shallow and pressed for time that they cannot read articles longer than two paragraphs, or that they're going to be fooled by b's
pandering (roughly every other headline in the paper has the word "sex" in it.) Of course, I've been wrong before--I thought the Examiner would fold within a year. I suppose there's no limit to what people will read--especially if it's free.

(I will be interested to see whether "bmore live"--a similarly empty-headed paper which looks exactly like "b" but which has been around longer--will sue the hell out of the Sun for ripping them off. But then, I guess the Sun's parent company has enough resources to swat any challenge that might come their way.)