Meanwhile, the same magazine reports a print media whiff:

An in-house spot trumpeting the latest new design seems almost designed to fail, essentially offering no reason to take the [L.A.] Times except for its spruced-up graphics, which the commercial barely shows.

The spot is done from the point of view of a newspaper vending machine, as seven diverse but uniformly uninteresting Angelinos approach it to peer in. Maybe they’re peering in to see one of the suddenly sensationalistic headlines, or maybe to steal a peek at a photo or to ogle the new layout. It’s unclear. What’s clear is that, for 25 of 30 seconds, the focus of the ad, through a wide-angle lens that makes everyone look unattractive, is not the L.A. Times but them.

By the time the product shot comes on we’re averting our eyes from the fish-eye view of humanity. If anyone does hang around to see the payoff, they may observe that only one of the seven actually stuffs quarters in to buy a paper.

His later observation that “worth the price in grocery store coupons” would be a more effective appeal hits the nail on the head. Certainly that’s about 75% of why the News & Observer still lands on our driveway. And more and more of those coupons are available online, too.