Other Suggested Free Dailies
July 31, 2000

Apparently, a recent scientific study discovered that 35% of those Riding The Rocket (both the official TTC slogan and an underrated porn film released in 1989) are still capable of independent thought, despite the preponderance of ads, the mind-halting odors and the screeching of subway and streetcar rails. Thus, on June 26 three free daily (Mon-Fri) Toronto transit papers (Metro, FYI Toronto and GTA Today) were dispatched to lapdance for commuters so as to prevent thoughts of The Cure For Cancer or The Mystery of the Refrigerator Lightbulb.

The papers sprang up suddenly (rumour has it that Metro was published from a hotel conference room for the first two weeks) and appear to derive their purpose and momentum from pure spite. A friend recently noted that the situation is reminiscent of "three bald men fighting over a comb. A very expensive comb." I would rework the metaphor only slightly. This war is like three eunuchs fighting over a young, svelte, busty blond, except that miraculously, someone is getting fucked on the deal. But it ain't the blond, unless Mother Nature dyes her hair, and we all know it's not nice to fool with oh ...forget it. Anyway, the incredible wastefulness of three more dailies borders on criminal given the already pulp-saturated subway system.

When I see the three new transit dailies, I think of those free, promotional t-shirts that usually end up on the backs of the homeless. It's tough to turn down a free shirt when it represents a 100 percent increase in your shirt allocation, but the thought of street people being turned into billboards is repellent. Toronto's info-impoverished denizens are being treated in a similar way. My feeling is that if someone can't be bothered to seek out daily news in any other context -- the Internet, a "real" newspaper like the Toronto Star/Sun or the National Post/ Globe and Mail or the alt.weeklies -- then perhaps we, as a society, should leave these people alone. If you can afford to use public transit, then you can probably afford a newspaper that provides more than five paragraphs about the Important Stories of The Day.

For an info-junky like myself, I can't help but notice that Metro, with its green motif and USA-esque layout looks uncomfortably similar to The Onion. Sadly, Metro is only occasionally (and unintentionally) funny. Of course, the other two papers aren't going to win any design awards, as they resemble a cross between a community newspaper, and a slightly better looking community newspaper.

All three papers currently lack voice and purpose and like Coke and Pepsi - identical flavoured battery acids masquerading as popular soft drinks - only branding and advertising will help to clearly differentiate them. Thus the real story regarding these transit papers won't emerge for a few more weeks or months, although the sooner, the better, as far as I'm concerned. If the three papers don't figure out how to distinguish themselves, and quickly, you will soon overhear conversations like "I read the free purple paper" which is the information economy equivalent of saying "I really enjoyed the performance of panicky idiot number five in Angry Gorgon Monster Eight Attacks the Mauve Planet."

I believe that arming the blissfully unaware with bite-sized chunks of world news is a bad idea. At best, it will allow folks to laugh with authority at the late-night talk show jokes and at worst the "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" syndrome will create a lot of problems at dinner parties and keggers. Neither situation is exactly noble in intention.

Still, all three papers have one redeeming feature - they are the perfect weapon to beat the person that aggressively pushed a free copy of the paper into your hand to begin with.

Of course, naysaying without providing an alternative (Like, ohmygod. Maybe you should totally stop publishing these papers, big corporate dum-dum heads!) is rather intellectually impotent. So here goes. There is a scene in "How to Get Ahead in Advertising" that I dimly remember, wherein the guy in charge of the pimple cream account declares that the way to sell more product is to do the exact opposite of what the consumer expects. I forget the exact mechanics, but I believe he ends up glamorizing pimples before suggesting their eradication. And so, in the spirit of removing unsightly items in a manner least expected, I suggest two options:

• Acknowledge the fact that these papers are the exclusive geographical domain of the TTC and tailor the information accordingly. While I can appreciate Metro's attempts to educate people about the newest African crisis, most Torontonians are more insular in scope, and articles like "How To Tell If The Passenger Beside You Is A Pervert" and distractions like "A Crossword to Kill Time When The Subway Breaks Down" will be far better received than updates on the Human Genome Project. Working from this theory, there could be a subway or bus stop of the month, a driver of the year, and I Saw You-style personal ads. "You: ride the Finch subway southbound everyday between 8:34 am until 8:56 am. Me: Look up from your paper right now. I'm the tall, creepy guy smiling at you."
• The problem is not too many useless papers, but rather, not enough of them. The first step in making this theory work is that all current and future transit papers must stop hiding their corporate affiliation. These papers should take pride in the fact that GTA Today is the Toronto Star Jr., that FYI Toronto is the Toronto Sun Jr., and acknowledge that Metro is some big Swedish consortium that no one knows much about. By leveraging existing consumer relationships to promote these new papers (I think they call it brand extension) a much more focused and interested readership with be gained. Some suggestions...
  • Shift To Go. Features articles about the digital and underground culture (i.e. using your Palm Pilot in the subway). By relying heavily on freelance writers, overhead could be kept appropriately low.
  • Toronto Life on the TTC. Features articles about making the best of a bad environment and looking good doing it. Articles about Great Day-Trips by Transit or The Five Cleanest Stations will provide a refreshingly upper-middle class angle on a lower-class method of transportation.
  • This (Train Is Full of Right Wing Bastards). A scrappy, underfunded leftist publication that reports on the neglected stories of political and social importance. Leave it displayed prominently in your cubicle to ensure maximum boss-panic.
  • National Post Mortem. Provides a quick summary on yesterday's news, from the rarely articulated right-wing perspective. Given the Post's long history of giving away papers for free, success is all-but-assured.