March 13, 2006

The Boring Editor

ONE SUMMER DAY OUT ON MARTHA'S VINEYARD many summers past, I was chatting with an old Times' hand who had a little cabin on the strand. "The problem with the Times," he said then, "is that they even publish the boring stories. I think we've not only got an ME [Managing Editor], but a BE too."

"A BE?"

"A Boring Editor. Somebody tasked with making sure that there's enough boring stuff in an issue to make it an issue of the New York Times and no other."

The traditon of the BE goes on today, as most of those who no longer read the Times will note from time to time.

A classic example of boring by design and utter predictability is today's Tale of Two Headlines.

Here's how the AP played it:
aphead.jpg
ABC News: Baghdad Still Calm Despite Revenge Deaths

Gets the news across and puts it in a larger context. Summarizes the report. Good, solid, classical work.

Not good enough for the Times which, in its effort to be boringly predicatble, has to haul its saggy-ass attitudes around with it and smear the blotches of its disdain on everything it touches. They run the same story past their BE and get:
nythead.jpg

Lawlessness? In.... Baghdad? Who knew?

Obviously not the readers of the New York Times whose attention span is, evidently, about the same as a goldfish's. Ah, well, it is the BE's task to spread boredom, hopelessness, anomie, ennui, moral fatigue, despair, boils, shingles, red tide, depression, ague, gout, Bush Derangement Syndrome, quislingitius, envy, and a vast assortment of other modern ills with all the subtly of an advanced trepanization procedure where the two-foot length of rebar goes into the reader's skull at the top and continues down the center of the spine.

It makes me want to commission a Zogby Poll to see if the incidence of suicide is higher among Times readers than the population as a whole.

I don't allow myself to risk it any more. After all, I could be turned to stone just from the Gorgan's glare of an unprotected Maureen Dowd sighting.

Still, I am glad to see, in just a passing glance, that the New York Times BE is still on the job and filling the readers with inertia.

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Posted by Vanderleun at March 13, 2006 3:06 PM | TrackBack
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AMERICAN DIGEST HOME
"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

EVERYWHERE has to judged by the standards of, and compaired to, life in New York. All good- thinking people around the world should have all the same aspirations, attitudes, and available options that anyone in New York has. Because not to have the New York atmosphere is to be deprived. That way, we can all get back to what is important, which is talking about New York.
(The prime difference between an evening in Sadr City and the same in Bedford-Stuy is a shortage of plastic explosive in the latter. But give them time.)

Posted by: ed in texas at March 14, 2006 5:38 AM
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.










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