Getting the basics down

Over at Headsup: The Blog, FEV has two good posts.




The first points out the danger of headlines and photos that don't quite work together.













The second is about something concerning me more and more lately -- as news sites shovel content onto the Web, there is less and less concern about headlines that tend to convict people.

It's a special problem with wire-service copy, although in this case it's the Charlotte Observer that posted it direct.

Contrast that with the neutral hed filed by WCNC later on the same site.

As I've noted before, just because we go to the Web doesn't mean we drop our standards for what to do. Or, as FEV wrote: That's why we call 'em "the basics." It doesn't matter how often you update the homepage. It doesn't matter what the New York Times does with its morning 1A meeting. It doesn't matter that Newsday thinks the world has been "digitally remastered." All these worldly things are but dust in the wind if the Desk of the Future can't remember the Fundamentals of the Past.