Register: All the police briefs that fit!

Above: Screen captures of the top stories on the Orange County Register website and also the top viewed.

Anyone else notice the top stories on the Orange County Register's home page are typically police blotter briefs or puffy self-help articles?

The screen capture of the stories above taken today at 4 p.m. shows a newsy day for the Register, if you can believe it. You have the UCI climate change study, and a poll about the presidential race. But then you get the typical:

Learn secrets to bargain-priced homes

Drive-by shooting leaves cars riddled with bullets

Famima!!, Fresh & Easy face off

Passerby tried to keep woman from jumping from overpass

It gets even more depressing when you look at the top-viewed stories:

• Lady wrestler won't be pinned by a bed sore
• Drive-by shooting leaves cars riddled with bullets
• Officers rescue woman on I-5 freeway overpass
• SUV overturned on 55

If I ran a newspaper website around there, I'd give equal play to the high readership stories ("Lady Wrestler won't be pinned by a bed sore" -- you're just got to read it, right?), and quality news and feature stories about Orange County. (I always thought the Los Angeles Times could feature both high-end entertainment coverage and the Perez Hilton variety -- just as movie studios have different companies that produced different kinds of films, newspapers should be able to branch out in similar ways.)

I'd also feature prominently Frank Mickadeit, the Register's best brand and one of the last remaining reasons the Register still is a must read for Orange Countians.