Friday, October 15, 2010

Attack of the Headlines

Excerpt from This Week In Stupid News – Breaking News or Broken News

"he Chillean Miner story was certainly the feel good story of the year. Cable news was given the gift of a watchable, interesting, and upbeat 24 hour news day. Then all three cable news networks graphics’ departments seemed to lose their mind, as they filled the television screen with graphic clutter announcing every minute element of this story. CNN posted the breaking news alert near the bottom of their pages, ‘Families await miners’ rescue.’ Really that’s breaking news? The families have been waiting for months.

Fox News ran two scrolls across their screen at once helping make their viewers cross-eyed. One scroll bringing such useful info to people such as, ‘capsule brings miners up from mine.’ I suppose if you’re somehow impaired that might be mildly helpful, as possibly someone would have thought the capsule was going to be set off like a rocket as part of Chile’s bicentennial celebration? MSNBC had the title of their show in the corner of their screen even after the show was no longer airing, and split the screen in two to show two different views. Unfortunately, they often showed the same view in those two separate panels.

Now, it must be challenging writing a myriad of informative short headlines for an event that is unfolding on live television, so here’s a tip – Stop Writing Them.
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Finish reading This Week In Stupid News – Breaking News or Broken News

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