Testy Copy Editors

Our new website is up and running at testycopyeditors.org. This board will be maintained as an archive. Please visit the new site and register. Direct questions to the proprietor, blanp@testycopyeditors.org
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 10:45 am

All times are UTC - 5 hours




Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 22 posts ] 
Author Message
 Post subject: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2003 10:52 pm 
Offline

Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 58
Location: Salt Lake City
There was a huge explosion at a North Carolina pharmaceuticals plant today, several (no exact number) people died ...
It's our lead story, with an 88-pt., one-deck head over a photo of smoke pouring from the plant.<p>There's a subhead, but it's below the fold, and therefore doesn't count in the "key words" game.<p>Enjoy.<p>[ January 29, 2003: Message edited by: blanp ]</p>


Top
 Profile E-mail  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2003 11:23 pm 
Offline

Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2002 1:01 am
Posts: 8342
Location: Bethesda, Md.
<blockquote><font size="1" face="TImes, TimesNR, serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Kawtry:
There was a huge explosion at a North Carolina pharmaceuticals plant today, several (no exact number) people died ...
It's our lead story, with an 88-pt., one-deck head over a photo of smoke pouring from the plant.
<hr></blockquote><p>Drug Plant Go Boom!


Top
 Profile E-mail  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2003 11:31 pm 
Offline

Joined: Fri Nov 15, 2002 1:01 am
Posts: 3557
Location: Cusp of retirement, grave or both
Blast dampens workers' spirits<p>Drophed:<p>Candy bars tossed by boss left unclaimed


Top
 Profile E-mail  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2003 11:32 pm 
Offline

Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 58
Location: Salt Lake City
This is what the editor came up with:
3 killed in blast


Top
 Profile E-mail  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2003 11:34 pm 
Offline

Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 58
Location: Salt Lake City
BTW ...
"Drug plant go boom" doesn't fit ...<p>"Drug plant: Boom" does


Top
 Profile E-mail  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2003 11:41 pm 
1. War on drugs finally under way
2. Pills kill 3
3. Drugs are a blast
4. Plant transplanted
5. Blow your mind, blow your factory
6. 3 dead, millions of capsules missing
7. N.C. unemployment rate rises


Top
  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2003 11:49 pm 
Offline

Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 58
Location: Salt Lake City
You know, we do have a local OxyContin trial story out front, too. Looks like we missed a packaging opportunity ...


Top
 Profile E-mail  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 12:02 am 
Please ... packaging AND key words? Are you sure you aren't owned by Gannett? Tell me you don't have a seven-column page format ....


Top
  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 12:08 am 
Offline

Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 58
Location: Salt Lake City
Tee-hee! I wish I could use that insult -- it'd sure fix the editor's wagon.


Top
 Profile E-mail  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 12:20 am 
E-mail me directly should that ever become a need. I am a freelance insult writer with a fairly steady clientele.<p>My latest: We recently had a number of young ladies nominated for positions as the queen and on the court of the Sequim Irrigation Festival, an annual celebration of ... well ... ditches, I guess, here in our area. Our editor thinks pageants are a barbaric anachronism and the people whoa spired to be judged in as breathless dimwits, and wanted to write a column to that effect, so I lent him the term "Ditchie Chicks" as his reference to said nominees.<p>Hey, I didn't say I was proud ... merely proficient.


Top
  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 12:37 am 
Offline

Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2002 1:01 am
Posts: 8342
Location: Bethesda, Md.
Isn't Kinston, N.C., a little too far from Myrtle Beach to warrant such play?


Top
 Profile E-mail  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 12:54 am 
I was wondering about that as well ... that would be like us going front-page with a banner for something like that in Oregon, and I can't imagine that happening under any cirumstances. Maybe the relationship between the Carolinas is different, but Washington and Oregon are two border states that for the most part happily ignore one another.<p>That begs a wider question that may only apply to smaller dailies, but does your paper feel obliged to be all things to all people on its front page, or does it have a local-only policy. One of the few things my paper does that I agree with philosophically is this: Our editors have decided to give their readers only the news they likely can't get anywhere else -- local news. We feel it's a wasted effort to try to provide anything more than a token full page (inside) of non-region, non-state, national and world news, because there are any number of media outlets that do that much better. As our executive editor once said: "Unless the president or one of the remaining Beatles is assassinated, it's all local, all the time."<p>Karenna ... what was the thinking of your editor behind the apocalyptic placement of your N.C. story?


Top
  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 1:09 am 
Offline

Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2002 12:01 am
Posts: 887
Location: U.S.A.
[QUThat begs a wider question ...[/QB][/QUOTE]<p>***No, it doesn't.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 1:14 am 
Offline

Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2002 12:01 am
Posts: 887
Location: U.S.A.
<blockquote><font size="1" face="TImes, TimesNR, serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Jim Thomsen:
[D]oes your paper feel obliged to be all things to all people on its front page, or does it have a local-only policy. One of the few things my paper does that I agree with philosophically is this: Our editors have decided to give their readers only the news they likely can't get anywhere else -- local news. We feel it's a wasted effort to try to provide anything more than a token full page (inside) of non-region, non-state, national and world news, because there are any number of media outlets that do that much better. As our executive editor once said: "Unless the president or one of the remaining Beatles is assassinated, it's all local, all the time."<hr></blockquote><p>My paper does have a local-only policy. I've seen the policy bent a few times for national health-issue stories, but the State of the Union speech story was the first time in my eight months at the paper that I've seen the rule broken outright.<p>I agree with the philosophy, totally. People who want breaking national news watch Headline News or buy USA Today. If they see the same stuff in the local paper, they'll pass it by. Not so if the stories can be found only in our paper or on the lame local TV news broadcasts (usually a day later).


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 1:22 am 
Offline

Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2002 12:01 am
Posts: 138
<blockquote><font size="1" face="TImes, TimesNR, serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Jim Thomsen:
Maybe the relationship between the Carolinas is different, but Washington and Oregon are two border states that for the most part happily ignore one another.<hr></blockquote><p>I grew up in the Detroit area, and whatever happened in Toledo was someone else's business, even though it was just as close as Detroit or other major suburbs and many residents worked down there. Now coming to the Carolinas it's a different situation. <p>I'm not sure why they're so buddy buddy, but they often consider themselves one state for statistical-comparison purposes (which blows my mind). Hell, even NHL and NFL teams go by the Carolina Hurricanes or Carolina Panthers without regard to which Carolina they're in.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 10:00 am 
Offline

Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2002 12:01 am
Posts: 37
Location: Colorado
Yes, the Carolinas are one entity for a lot of people. I grew up in South Carolina, but lived close enough to Charlotte that we spent a lot of time there.
As for the all-local rule, I think it's a good one for smaller papers. I've never understood why the Kingwood Observer -- our little area's paper that we get thrown on our driveway for free once a week -- covers things like the war in Afghanistan and the Venezuelan crisis like its reporters are on the scene.


Top
 Profile E-mail  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 11:38 am 
Offline

Joined: Fri Nov 15, 2002 1:01 am
Posts: 3557
Location: Cusp of retirement, grave or both
My paper is 220 miles from Montreal, and about eight years ago the then-editor felt the need to start a Canada page. We even had a stringer writing about Canadian issues. This puzzled us until someone pointed out the obvious reason he did it:<p>The editor had been editor in San Antonio before coming here. There is a Mexican population in San Antonio; Mexican politics are of local interest and probably have some sort of local impact. <p>Albany doesn't have a French-Canadian enclave, nor are Canadian politics of any interest here. The only thing anyone cares about is the exchange rate. The Canada page was a big flop. To the editor's credit, it didn't last long.<p>Getting back to the plant blast, I can't imagine why this story would have been the lede in anything other than the local papers.


Top
 Profile E-mail  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 2:12 pm 
Offline

Joined: Mon Apr 08, 2002 12:01 am
Posts: 10
Location: Washington, D.C.
We're probably 300 miles or so from said plant blast, but we led with it and were going to play it about as big as kawtry's paper did till the death count mysteriously decreased. <p>Management's rationale (as is the case with most death/destruction stories that get big play here): "It's what everyone's gonna be talking tomorrow."


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 2:47 pm 
Offline

Joined: Fri Nov 15, 2002 1:01 am
Posts: 3557
Location: Cusp of retirement, grave or both
I'd say that's a bad decision.


Top
 Profile E-mail  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 3:14 pm 
How is management qualified to know what real people talk about?


Top
  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Fri Jan 31, 2003 6:26 pm 
Offline

Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2002 12:01 am
Posts: 257
Location: back in D.M., funny enough
<blockquote><font size="1" face="TImes, TimesNR, serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by RedEagle97:
Management's rationale (as is the case with most death/destruction stories that get big play here): "It's what everyone's gonna be talking tomorrow."<hr></blockquote><p>Management says this because:
a. Pitchers of the 'splosion was all on the cable news tee vee channels.
b. Management thinks "everyone" watches the cable news channels because management does.*
c. Management thinks the cable news channels are in the same business they are. <p>*This is also why management considered Phil Donahue's return to TV and Greta Van Susteren's face lift "news." <p>Management probably also took AP's word for it that the factory in Kinston made drugs, which it didn't.<p>[ January 31, 2003: Message edited by: dmfugitive ]</p>


Top
 Profile E-mail  
 
 Post subject: Re: A chance for you to play along, live, with the "key
PostPosted: Sat Feb 01, 2003 1:00 am 
Offline

Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2003 1:01 am
Posts: 58
Location: Salt Lake City
4Jfan is right: we do consider ourselves the conjoined sibling of North Carolina. Part of that is because Myrtle Beach's coverage area stretches into N.C. by a few miles.
But certainly not to Kinston.
Why'd that get such big play? The management thinking (It's on Tee Vee) is part of it; our lack of local effort despite our dedication to local focus is another part; and MB is a KR paper ... Charlotte is THEE KR paper and our editor and deputy managing editor came from Charlotte.
Charlotte farts, we apologize.


Top
 Profile E-mail  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 22 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 5 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 7 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group

What They're Saying




Useful Links