How come nobody told us we were supposed to approach the New York Times Book Review in the same manner we approach, oh, really good Chinese noodles? We will work harder on this, but doubt our efforts will carry over to our arch-nemesis, the book review section of the Los Angeles Times (okay, it’s not really our arch-nemesis, but we’re not fond of it). MediaBistro interviews Sam Tanenhaus about the new direction of the NYTBR — we predict serious backlash no matter how brilliant the new design. How do we know? Well, we once read a letter to the editor complaining about how new “School Zone” signs are too bright in their yellowness; the author missed the dull yellow and felt the change was unjustified. We trust in people to focus on the wrong stuff just as we do ourselves (please see previous about how we still don’t get the LAT‘s revamp of the Sunday Calendar section).
Update: While we’ve been traveling and such, lots more interesting stuff vis à vis Sam Tanenhaus has been filtering through the blog world. We couldn’t possibly summarize, so go forth and read it for yourselves.
