Jackson Free Press

OK, when Rick James told us to “Give it to me, baby,” we got it. But when The Clarion-Ledger plasters its new saying—“Give It * to Me Local *” (sic)—all over the trash they dump in our yards without our permission, it makes a whole lot less sense. And when you Google it to see where such a dumb saying comes from, you find a white dude covered in gold glitter. Huh.

Worse, of course, is that there is nothing local about The Clarion-Ledger, which along with 80 other newspapers is owned by the international Gannett empire, based in Virginia (and that uses its ShopLocal™ to push big-box outlets). And there is nothing local about the new phrase, either, as you find out under the glitter dude: CreativeFeed came up with the “Give It To Me” campaign for all 81 of the papers as part of “The Hometown Advantage, a strategic framework to re-establish the power of news outlets.” It seems the goofy (and dishonest) phrase is “a rallying cry for readers and the media companies to regain attribution.”

Like we said, huh.

We asked our Facebook readers to suggest alternative slogans.

Here’s what we got:

“Tell It To Us Truthful”

“Clarion Who?”

“Fail Locally With Us”

“Sticking with Print, in the Digital Age”

“Mississippi’s Largest Failed Attempt at Journalism”

“Because the Glitter-Boy Says So.” (OK, that one’s ours.)