Posts Tagged ‘Newspapers’
The Annals of Radical Juxtaposition: Special Journalism Edition…
From Jim Fallows’ always-illuminating Atlantic blog, “Many Mental Patients Simply Walk Out“:
I mentioned yesterday that I was “sure” it was an “accident” that the NYT juxtaposed two stories on its home page about artificial-heart devices. The first story said that former VP Cheney had gotten one; the second, that too many people were getting them.
Reader Mike Diehl says that I was correct to put the air quotes (OK, electronic quotes) where I did. He writes:
>>Had I seen that, I would not have had a doubt the pairing was intentional. I still have a copy of the New York Times from August 8, 1974 — one day before Richard Nixon resigned the presidency. On the front page at the bottom is a photo of Nixon, walking from the Executive Office Building to the White House, juxtaposed with an article headlined, “Many Mental Patients Simply Walk Out.”
Searching for this page, which I am delighted to have found and am attaching here, I note that quite a number of articles on mental health facilities were published in the paper that summer, several making the front page. Two front-page pieces I found are adjacent to articles on Nixon, but none so juicy as the one I cite above. However, on July 31, a front-page piece by Lawrence van Gelder headlined “Mental Patient Held As Church Arsonist” is sandwiched between two articles on Watergate, one headlined “President Surrenders 11 Tapes to Sirica,” the other a reproduction of the text of Impeachment Article III. Coincidence? I think not.
As a graphic designer, I’m aware the opportunities to make such a wry statement with mere page layout are rare, but the New York Times is no stranger to the practice.<<
click image above, or here, to enlarge
On a vaguely-related (and marginally-suitable-for-work) front, readers might enjoy “15 Funniest Accidentally Naughty Headlines,” e.g…
As we ponder the future of journalism, we might recall that it was on this date in 1997 that the Italian government issued the 1,000 Lire coin, the reverse side of which features a European map on which Germany (which reunited in 1990) is shown as still divided into East and West. The coins were discontinued the following year.
Old habits, dying hard…
From the afore-cited and ever-amusing Criggo.com (“Newspapers are going away. That’s too bad.”) TotH to Miss Cellania.
As we realize that it’s time to get to work on our New Year’s resolutions, we might pause to wish the happiest of birthdays to Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain; he was born on this date in 1835 in Florida, Missouri.
Clemens began his career as a newspaper man– first as a typesetter, then as a reporter. But he had no fear of new technologies: he was the first author to submit a typewritten manuscript to his publisher.
The Future of Newspapers…
Tucson-based artist Nick Georgiou finds an enduring use for the broadsheet and the tabloid… See more inspired folding on his blog, My Human Computer, and at The Design Inspiration.
As we rethink recycling, we might recall that it was on this date in 1626 that a large codfish, split open at a Cambridge market, revealed a religious text inside, written by John Frith. Frith, a English protestant and preacher of religious tolerance, had been imprisoned a century before by Cardinal Wolsey in the fish cellar at Cardinal College.
The text was ultimately published by Cambridge University Press as “Vox Piscis.”
Frith (and Andrew Hewet) being burned at the stake for heresy, 1533 (source)
We stand corrected…
As 2009 draws to a close, and we do our best, with an eye to a better 2010, to learn from our errors, the good folks at Regret the Error have helpfully compiled “Crunks 2009: The Year in Media Errors and Corrections.”
It features such capital corrections as this, from the British Medical Journal:
During the editing of this Review of the Week by Richard Smith (BMJ 2008;337:a2719,doi:10.1136/bmj.a2719), the author’s term “pisshouse” was changed to “pub” in the sentence: “Then, in true British and male style, Hammond met Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, in the pub and did a deal.” However, a pisshouse is apparently a gentleman’s toilet, and (in the author’s social circle at least) the phrase “pisshouse deal” is well known. (It alludes to the tendency of men to make deals while standing side by side and urinating.) In the more genteel confines of the BMJ Editorial Office, however, this term was unknown and a mistake was made in translating it into more standard English. We apologise for any misunderstanding this may have caused.
And this, from the Los Angeles Times:
Bear sighting: An item in the National Briefing in Sunday’s Section A said a bear wandered into a grocery story in Hayward, Wis., on Friday and headed for the beer cooler. It was Thursday.
… Such exalted errata (and consequent apologia) as this, from The Sun (UK):
In my column on August 22 I suggested that Sharon Osbourne was an unemployed, drugaddled, unfit mum with a litter of feral kids. This was not intended to be taken literally. I fully accept she is none of these things and sincerely apologise to Sharon and her family for my unacceptable comments. Sorry Sharon…
…Such terrific typos as this, from The Daily Universe, a student paper at BYU:
In printed copies of Monday’s Daily Universe, due to a spelling error in a photo caption, the word “apostles” was replaced with a different word. The Daily Universe apologizes to the Quorum of the Twelve and our readers for the error.
(The spelling error appeared in a photo caption in which the word “apostle” was rendered as “apostate.” In referring to activities at the General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints last weekend, the caption read in part, “Members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostates and other general authorities raise their hands in a sustaining vote…”)
And it features some exquisite headlines of the poorly-chosen sort, like the one at the top of this post and this particularly tasteless use of the First Children:
See more in each of these categories and others (e.g., Sources, Misquotes, Hoax) here.
As we wonder how many of the wounds afflicting the traditional press are self-inflicted, we might recall that it was on this date in 1916 that James Joyce’s semi-autobiographical Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was published in New York (having been previously serialized in Ezra Pound’s review The Egoist). It was published in the UK the following year.
Cover of the first edition (title in relief)
Your correspondent’s time in the land of consistent snow and occasional power continues; so per earlier alerts, (Roughly) Daily is unlikely to be roughly daily again until early in the New Year…
A Fiorello LaGuardia for our times…
The decline of the daily press in the U.S. is a problem of many dimensions— among them, the question of the funny papers: if newspapers fail, where will one get one’s comic strips? The likely answer, one reckons, is the web… and happily, there are several sites featured earlier in (R)D– e.g., here— stepping into the breech.
But what of history? Where will one find the best strips of the past? Happily, the web is responding here too. Mr. ilovecomix (Steve Cottle) has created a wonderful archive of daily and weekly strips from throughout the history of the comics.
From the sublime…
Click to access a larger format
to the ridiculous…
click for access to a larger format
Visit ilovecomix and revel in the ink!
As we choke back our chortles, we might remark that this is the birthday (1815) of George Boole, the British mathematician and philosopher who developed what’s now known as Boolean Algebra (Boolean Logic) and was one of the fathers of symbolic logic… thus was (with an eye to each of those contributions), a central contributor to the foundation on which all of modern computing is based… and thus, on which the web (if not the narrative logic of the comics it makes available) depends.
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