When headlines collapse

This ambiguous headline about trouble on the set of the latest Rob Schneider movie baffles Defamer, an L.A. gossip site:Rob Schneider OK after movie set collapseIt's the sort of double meaning that also hurts these headlines:Commander relieved after gondola crashProstitutes appeal to popeJudges appear more lenient on crack cocaine (an example from The Lower Case …

From copy editor to features editor

The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., has named Thad Ogburn as features editor. He got his start at the N&O on the copy desk after a stint as a reporter in Jacksonville, N.C., and went on to lead the North Raleigh News edition and the paper's education coverage. Thad was also a key player …

Draco’s legacy

I dropped in on Rush Limbaugh's radio show this week, hoping he would talk about his latest brush with the law. Instead, he was discussing flag burning and The New York Times — the standard fare. Limbaugh, however, did use one of my favorite words: draconian. Limbaugh used the adjective to describe a campaign-finance law …

US Weekly does a 180

US Weekly understands its audience: Do these readers want to know about Africa's struggles with disease, poverty and neglect, as discussed by Angelina Jolie on "Anderson Cooper 360" last week? Of course not. Do they want to know about Brad and babies? Of course!So the celebrity magazine condenses the interview down to its gossipy core. …

Carolina consolidation

With the McClatchy's purchase of Knight Ridder a done deal, newspapers affected by the change are weighing in on what it means to them and their readers. Newsrooms have been wondering, too.It's particularly interesting in North Carolina and South Carolina (not North and South Carolina, as an editor at the Greensboro paper once told the …

To the letter

Ted Vaden, the public editor at The News & Observer, writes today on the editing of letters to the editor. The letter in question is one from Richard Burr, one of North Carolina's two GOP senators. Burr was annoyed that the N&O editorial department had condensed his response to a recent N&O editorial on food-labeling …

Seeing double

Yes, that is the same story about the Lejeune Marine on facing pages in The News & Observer. How does this happen? Because of zoning: the reshuffling of news (and advertising) based on location, typically by county.As stories bounce around between editions during the course of an evening of desk work, some get into the …

Devilish headline in St. Pete

The St. Petersburg Times briefly had a story on its site today with this attention-grabbing headline:Rove, Satan plot GOP fall campaign strategyThe Onion-like story went on to describe a news conference by the president's right-hand man, Karl Rove. St. Pete has taken the story off its site, but some of it is preserved here. Alas, …

Death becomes them

USA Today takes us to a conference of obituary writers. The story is (where else?) on the paper's Life front today.

Blogs, polls and the Battle of the Bulge

For all the talk about rise of blogs and the demise of the Mainstream Media, there's really no contest in original reporting, writing and editing. The MSM is still far ahead, and many blogs thrive only thanks to links to established news sites. Most media-oriented blogs (including this one) focus on analysis and commentary, not …