Newspaper Screw-Ups
We often joke about news headlines and how horribly trivial, meaningless, or misleading they are. CNN is often the target. Our local paper, The Guardian, also has a tendency to mess up. It’s usually not with headlines though. It’s with the front page picture. It often has nothing to do with the front page story and is usually confusing as to what the picture is referencing. While they’ve made some mess ups in the past, this one struck me as the most hilarious.
For those of you not familiar with the Lead Story: “Ex-Polar Workers Will Fight for Plant”. A local fish processing plant went bankrupt and its workers are angry and are trying to get the government to keep one of the plants open. Those workers do not have camouflage, machine guns, or helicopters. That is the South Korean Army in the picture.
I expecially like that when you realize in this photo the "fight" headline has nothing to do with the photo, you then think the "attack" headline below might be releated - but no, none of those guys in the photo are the "Hillsborough MP".
It happens so often, you'd almost think they were trying. ???
The juxtaposition is amusing, but it's not "bad journalism."
Perhaps "horrible journalism" was a poor choice of words. However, this front page violates the five "Be"'s of writing, the first lesson we learned at HC in 1993.
1. Be Human
2. Be Specific
3. Be Clear
4. Be Concise
5. Be Imaginative
I think these principles apply to all writing, but especially journalism.
I myself violated numbers four and five on a regular basis, contribution to my early exit from the industry.
Credit, where credit's due.
I couldn't possibly have remembered all of those five "Be"'s on my own, so I looked them up in The Canadian Press Stylebook (1989 reprint); Pages 411-418.