From the Florida Press Association’s 2007 Better Weekly Newspaper Contest comes this gem. They actually have a category for “blooper headline of the year.”
The “winner” comes from Alachua County Today. Ready?
“Harris gets head job”
Sorry, but I don’t think there should be an award for shoddy editing in the first place.
We see awards for shoddy editing all the time, Doug. They’re called design awards.
Sorry, man. You lobbed in a high and outside pitch there.
And again, the usual disclaimer of this’ll be posted at my site, so deleting it here isn’t really deleting it, etc.
http://www.wenalway.com/forum/index.php?topic=13.msg4377
Not this garbage again, Robert. Design IS editing. I don’t know how you can’t see that design isn’t beautification, but instead making things work together.
Wish that pitch was high and tight instead of grooved….
If the things worked together, then you’d have a case.
Newspapers have failed to make the concepts mesh.
Ah, yet another deadly blow from the typewriter of the infamous design hater. Don’t feed him.
Typewriter — ha, ha. There’s that designer humor again.
Well, there may be good reason here, Robert. You believe design is evil. You must also hate computers, since they facilitate design, so you’d just about have to be a typewriter guy.
I can’t imagine you’re a Luddite, but as far as newspapers are concerned….
You and I agree that a pure “design” solution is wrong, but you believe any sort of visual organization of information is a bad idea. It’s where we disagree, and that’s too bad.
So let me challenge you: Spell out for us all what your ideal newspaper would be, what it would look like, what it would cover, and how it would be tailored for an individual market. I already know some things it won’t have — like billboard fronts — but really, let’s all learn from you what you believe the “ideal” is. Bring it on!
Also, I should add to the previous post (which has yet to appear) that you can make the following assumption: Any model I create is going to feature a greatly diminished role for the design and visuals segment.
AM(P)Es of presentation, obsession about rule lines, and other such nonsense will be minimized and/or eliminated. If you can’t write a headline or repair a lead, there’s no place for you in the model I present.
So enough teasing, sailor. Show us what you’ve got.
As I said, it’ll be posted as a link, and it’s not going to be only one or two sentences. So it’ll take time.
This should be good. I have been reading this post for quite some time and it’s been interesting. I want to read what Rknil has to say about “what your ideal newspaper will be?” But I have another question for Rknil, what are favorite publications? Why?
Oh. I didn’t notice the new comment here.
So off the top of my head, with the two minutes I have, I think The Daily Reflector in Greenville, N.C., could be a good paper if it would EVER learn how to do subheds properly. It generally does not use reverse type or most of the other loathsome PFAD tactics.
Also, and this will take some by surprise, USA Today is a frequent purchase, and not because “the front page draws my eye, and I can’t put it down” or whatever other nonsense designers try to claim. Aside from missing all the late games, it has some decent to good baseball coverage. When football season starts, it’s a must-buy for the weekend previews, etc.
Of course, in true Internet style, someone will now proceed to say why both of those papers suck. Your time begins — now. (Or whenever Dougie gets around to greenlighting this post.)
(DOUG NOTE: I have to pull your comments out of the “Akismet Spam” file. Sometimes I wish I’d just leave them there…. You really need to come off the PFAD thing. Like I say, you’ll get a lot more credibility if you put your money where your mouth is, or your typing fingers, whichever. Don’t complain about it if you’re not going to take action.)
So change your spam settings.
And how was that not an answer to the previous question?