Headless mag

Am I the last to notice that Conscious Choice -- Chicago's "'enlightened' urban lifestyle magazine focusing on social, green, health, food and spiritual consciousness" -- employs a publisher, a production manager, a copy editor, three editorial interns . . . but no editor?

It doesn't count that the chain that owns it has a "national senior editor," or that it still publishes reader communiques under the heading "letters to the editor," or that freelance submissions are to be sent to an email address bearing that title.

I understand writers are a dime a dozen (my price is either higher or lower than that, so I'm out of the game), but -- no editor? Who will decide which press releases to reprint?

Blogging Chicagoland

Two essential abilities these days are (a) identifying the truth inside the gaffe, and (b) laughing until you cry, because what else is there?

My former colleague Whet Moser has both, which makes Chicagoland one of the few non-genealogical blogs I check every day. Here's his take on the Chicago Tribune's new "innovation officer," an AOR and satellite radio guru who thinks news and information might be the new rock and roll.

News and information:

* Produces great wealth for old dudes who are kind of afraid of it

* Produces modest wealth for a few middle-aged guys who have been playing their greatest hits for the past ten years or so, eg. David Brooks

* Is increasingly the provenance of balkanized groups of alienated young quasi-amateur urbanites

Read the whole thing, and the rest of them too.