"Clever Police Chief Arrested"

Gerald Cohen gcohen at UMR.EDU
Tue Jul 30 00:10:52 UTC 2002


   Grant Barrett asks how I can be sure there was no humor intended in
the above headline. Answer: I've lived in Rolla, Missouri for 34
years and have never seen humor in the headlines of my local
newspaper. It's just not part of the culture here.

Gerald Cohen


>At 6:39 PM -0400 7/29/02, Grant Barrett wrote:
>On 7/29/02 16:04, "Gerald Cohen" <gcohen at UMR.EDU> wrote:
>
>>  Here's another example. There's a Misouri town named Clever, and in
>>  the 1980s the police chief there did something that got him arrested.
>>  My local newspaper (Rolla Daily News) carried the story with the
>>  headline: "Clever Police Chief Arrested."
>>    I'm sure there was no humor intended, but I couldn't help
>>  thinking: If he was so clever, what was he doing getting arrested?
>
>How sure are you there was no humor intended? Journalists go to great
>lengths to work these sorts of things into headlines. Every once in a while
>the Bong Bull newsletter ( http://gondwanaland.com/bong/ ) features them,
>with reporters explaining whether it was intended or not (usually it was,
>with the half-hope that an editor would catch it before publication). I
>believe the Letters page at Romenesko's MediaNews  (
>http://www.poynter.org/medianews/ ) had a similar thread.



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