THIS IS THE NEWS

now, I may just be crazy and procrastinating. Well, that's a given. But I think our local paper The Mercury has pretty much outdone itself in terms of confusing and terrible headlines this week. If you like news articles about women who have received incorrect post, you'd better calm yourself down now, I'm warning you, it gets wild.




I know there is a phrase "baptism of fire", which might be what they're straining towards, but that phrase is itself a tired cliché crappy metaphor. So saying "baptism of water" is tautologous. They're bending bad language back on itself to the point that it's close to snapping.


George is made of stronger stuff, apparently. Good for him.


this is three journalistic clichés strung together. And it's always inappropriate to describe anything that isn't a massacre as a massacre. Especially when it's football.


Do you have horse sense? I'm pretty sure I don't.


...what to put on page FOUR of the newspaper? RUMOURS!


...and what to put on page FIVE? Someone got a letter! Oh, what a world we live in!


this is the one that set me off. The actual story is really sad. But the headline is a classic. I think growing up watching The Day Today has profoundly influenced the way I perceive news coverage.