Starbuckled

Starbucks deserves credit for figuring out a way to get nationwide publicity by closing down all of its American stores for three hours on Tuesday -- for barista retraining. Even the New York Times wrote about the temporary evening shutdown, and went into the company's financial concerns and the closed-doors staff re-education. I actually didn't know anything about the training/PR stunt until I saw the Times story and then yesterday's Coloradoan headline from its "Business" section, which reads like something from the Onion (except that the Onion would have gotten the grammar right):


The lack of actual despair or interest over the "full caffeine eclipse," as dubbed by "The Daily Show," (and the failure to write about the bigger corporate finagling of Starbucks) makes me think that Gannett probably mandated its papers, including the Coloradoan, to report on the closures locally even if there isn't anything remotely newsy or interesting about the public's response in Fort Collins.

Here is the segment that "The Daily Show" aired last night: