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 Post subject: Bad hed of the week
PostPosted: Sat Jan 18, 2003 2:33 pm 
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Joined: Fri Nov 15, 2002 1:01 am
Posts: 3557
Location: Cusp of retirement, grave or both
We have an advertorial Automotive Weekly tab with what passes for "editorial content." Marginally relevant here, perhaps, but I wanted to include a hed from this week's edition. There is a person who has the title of editor; he works in advertising.<p>The story is about Wankel engines. I didn't read it because I don't know what they are and don't care, but was rather puzzled by the hed:<p>We're Not Just Pulling Your Wankel<p>I can't help but wonder if this was yet another space-holder gone terribly awry.<p>Dean and Paul, I can try to save you souvenir copies of this work of art. They're being snapped up fast.


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 Post subject: Re: Bad hed of the week
PostPosted: Sat Jan 18, 2003 2:50 pm 
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Joined: Thu Apr 18, 2002 12:01 am
Posts: 1399
Location: In the newsroom
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica ,sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Bumfketeer:
We have an advertorial Automotive Weekly tab with what passes for "editorial content." Marginally relevant here, perhaps, but I wanted to include a hed from this week's edition. There is a person who has the title of editor; he works in advertising.<p>The story is about Wankel engines. I didn't read it because I don't know what they are and don't care, but was rather puzzled by the hed:<p>We're Not Just Pulling Your Wankel<p>I can't help but wonder if this was yet another space-holder gone terribly awry.<p>Dean and Paul, I can try to save you souvenir copies of this work of art. They're being snapped up fast.<hr></blockquote>
Yikes, I hope that's all it was. OTOH, it's so bad it's almost good. <p>BTW, the Wankel engine is rotary. The Mazdas that were first introduced here back in the '70s (?) had them, and the advertising made a big deal about the fact that they hummed as compared with a piston engine.


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 Post subject: Re: Bad hed of the week
PostPosted: Sat Jan 18, 2003 4:27 pm 
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Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2002 12:01 am
Posts: 131
Location: Cleveland, OH
The Wankel was famous for smoking, as I recall. I wonder what they were thinking when they wrote that. I wonder if they're writing for another publication now. But it reminds me of a head that almost made a Syracuse paper back in the '80s:<p>Family jewels
sold in tin


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 Post subject: Re: Bad hed of the week
PostPosted: Thu Jan 23, 2003 2:48 pm 
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Joined: Mon Apr 08, 2002 12:01 am
Posts: 399
Location: Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
<blockquote><font size="1" face="TImes, TimesNR, serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Bumfketeer:
Dean and Paul, I can try to save you souvenir copies of this work of art. They're being snapped up fast.<hr></blockquote><p>Yes! Please!


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 Post subject: Re: Bad hed of the week
PostPosted: Thu Jan 23, 2003 3:16 pm 
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Joined: Mon Apr 08, 2002 12:01 am
Posts: 231
Location: Bellevue, WA
That's wheel funny.<p>What a gas.<p>Give me a brake.


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 Post subject: Re: Bad hed of the week
PostPosted: Thu Jan 23, 2003 4:15 pm 
I nominate myself for Bad Hed of the Week. A few days ago -- same day I was fired -- we ran a story about a local couple who discovered an urn full of ashes during their morning walk, and has since been trying to research the discovery in hopes helping the ashes find a final resting place. I wrote this head: "Couple's walk takes curious urn" ... and, with each passing millisecond, I wish with increasing fervency that I had not done it. I plead guilty, however, to a lesser charge of being under the influence of a firing-induced bad mood.


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 Post subject: Re: Bad hed of the week
PostPosted: Thu Jan 23, 2003 9:42 pm 
I refused a reassignment that would have taken me away from hard-news desk work ... not because my performance was poor -- on the contrary, I got an excellent performance review recently -- but because they wanted to develop the other full-time copy editor's hard-news chops. The only way to do so was at my expense, so I said no -- that it was an excellent plan, but not right for me because I had moved past the grunt-work phase of my career (laying out community calendar pages, Food sections and the TV Guide, among other duties). I suggested that they should, paradoxically, not try to hire the most qualified copy editor out there -- stop snickering, now -- and instead hire on some fresh young college grad willing to learn it all from the very bottom up. They seemed to agree. I've been asked to stay on indefinitely, and will do so -- until I can find a better job. I'm quite certain that will happen long before they land somebody willing to work for peanuts in a remote and inaccessible corner of the extreme Pacific Northwest, so I should get the last laugh. In the meantime, we'll be both be using each other -- me a little more than them. It's all good.


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