Saturday, November 23, 2013

Headline Oops: Home, home on the range - without a dictionary

Yeah, what can you say  about heds like this?


Update 11/24: As might be expected, when this showed up on my Facebook feed, some folks started getting upset about the state of the media business. I agree. I empathize. But I also wrote this:

Let's be honest. Risk assessment as part of the cost-benefit analysis has always been part of business, and a media company is a business. Please don't read this as an endorsement, but please understand if I don't get all weepy about this kind of stuff. 

The managers of these businesses have made an obvious assessment that they can diminish product quality and still make a dime or two - maybe more than before (though most of this is a stem, not stop, the bleeding strategy). Most newspapers and broadcasters have never been in the Audi or BMW line of business - they've been a higher-end Ford or Chevy at best (maybe occasionally a Buick). 

It's business, folks; get used to it or start your own and prove that quality sells. 

These are not public utilities (whether they should be is another debate). As I used to tell ACES, if you want to make the quality argument, you've got to monetize it -- and the only ones who will do that for you are the libel insurers (or, perhaps eventually, the customers, but I'm not holding my breath on that). Until then, we get to make fun, but don't get all exercised about it beyond that.

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