Several newspapers around the country have started bite-sized tabs for readers who are either
still learning to read or have no time to digest the news in larger bites. The Dallas Morning News
recently bought into the tabs-for-dummies trend with Quick, which targets what it
calls “time-starved” young readers.
In fact, it’s not the first Quick to hit the streets, according to the poet and journalist Leon Freilich. During the
early 1950s there was a previous incarnation called Quick magazine, which “promised to tie
up the nation’s week’s news succinctly on pages little bigger than a cigarette pack.”
The following story made the media rounds: Quick commissioned
long-winded novelist James Michener to visit Egypt and write an in-depth article about its
politics, economy and prospects in the changing post-WWII world. Michener was in Luxor when,
two months into his assignment, he received a telegram from the magazine: “Need Egypt piece
fast. Keep to eight words.” How long did Quick last? About as long as a carton of cigarettes in
the stained fingers of a nicotine junkie.
Freilich told that tale to Jim Romenesko. It was too much fun not to
repeat. Now here’s the game, which has nothing to do with tabs for dummies: How
good are you at reading faces? Can you tell the difference between a serial killer and a program
inventor? Test your intuition.
