Tennessee: It's To Die For

People go to Florida to die. So where do Floridians go. Tennessee, the Sentinel's Liz Doup reports. Doup describes the bucolic and paradisical rural Tennessee life like a funeral director selling a plush coffin. "I found a piece of heaven," says the lede Florida expat. Yeah, literally. Living in a big house on a hill in Tennessee would be nice for a vacation, but after a month or two, you'd be tearing down the walls. I'm from Kentucky. I know.

So I was driving through North Palm Beach and saw one of those Sentinel "How can we help you?" billboards. And I thought, oh God, the virus is spreading. I'm starting to feel like Donald Sutherland right before the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Anyway, in this Sunday's column, Sun-Sentinel Earl Maucker decided to explain to a reader why exactly he turned the newspaper into a traditional housewife of a newspaper, more concerned with the price of milk than what's happening in the halls of power. In it he admits that he's shortening stories and adding more graphics. In other words, the Sentinel is blatantly Gannettizing. With all the cuts and redirection at the Tribune Co., these are precarious times for Sentinel. In his column Maucker trotted out the new buzz phrase: "Utility journalism." Yeah, who's the tool?