Huff n puff

I do read the Huffington Post most every day, just to see what the headlines are. I should have learned by now that this isn't always the best way to learn what's going on. They cherry-pick. Today's example, a headline that blared "Throw the bums out!" So I check out the story the headline links to, and find a pretty evenhanded article in the LA Times about differences in the Repub and Dem approaches to canvassing and persuading potential voters. The HuffPo headline came from the following paragraph:

That contrast underscores a central question to be answered Tuesday in this South Florida House district and other competitive races across the country: Which political force will prove stronger — the niche-marketing effort, led by GOP strategist Karl Rove and powered by computerized outreach methods, or the classic "throw the bums out" (my bolding) mood of an electorate uneasy with the Iraq war and unhappy with one-party rule?

The headline HuffPo chose to post implied a more partisan, emotional article.

This isn't the first time they've done this. Their headlines linking to stories about the Haggard scandal implied that Haggard had confessed to an affair with Mike Jones, when at the time he had done no such thing. I can't recall other specific examples offhand, but there have been several instances where I've read the linked article and thought that the headline they posted was misleading.

As much as I sympathize with their general POV, my feeling is that if you can't nail them with the unvarnished truth, wait until you have some truth in hand that you can nail them with. Don't invent it. Don't speculate and don't pick selected facts and blow them out of proportion. We've seen enough of that over the past few years. Just the facts. Bloody hell, aren't those enough?

Huff n puff

I do read the Huffington Post most every day, just to see what the headlines are. I should have learned by now that this isn't always the best way to learn what's going on. They cherry-pick. Today's example, a headline that blared "Throw the bums out!" So I check out the story the headline links to, and find a pretty evenhanded article in the LA Times about differences in the Repub and Dem approaches to canvassing and persuading potential voters. The HuffPo headline came from the following paragraph:

That contrast underscores a central question to be answered Tuesday in this South Florida House district and other competitive races across the country: Which political force will prove stronger — the niche-marketing effort, led by GOP strategist Karl Rove and powered by computerized outreach methods, or the classic "throw the bums out" (my bolding) mood of an electorate uneasy with the Iraq war and unhappy with one-party rule?

The headline HuffPo chose to post implied a more partisan, emotional article.

This isn't the first time they've done this. Their headlines linking to stories about the Haggard scandal implied that Haggard had confessed to an affair with Mike Jones, when at the time he had done no such thing. I can't recall other specific examples offhand, but there have been several instances where I've read the linked article and thought that the headline they posted was misleading.

As much as I sympathize with their general POV, my feeling is that if you can't nail them with the unvarnished truth, wait until you have some truth in hand that you can nail them with. Don't invent it. Don't speculate and don't pick selected facts and blow them out of proportion. We've seen enough of that over the past few years. Just the facts. Bloody hell, aren't those enough?

Just musing along

For some reason, I have this dream of selling a story to The New Yorker. I nursed it along before I started writing short work, even though I felt that there was no way in hell that they would be interested in anything I wrote. Still, I bought a few issues of the magazine over the past couple of years. Read the fiction offerings. Some of it ranked with the worst stuff I had ever read, although I've read enough similar stuff to think that some literary style was passing me by and I simply didn't get it. Some of it was "eh." They didn't publish "Brokeback Mountain" every month.

So I was curious when I saw that one of their stories won the World Fantasy Award for Short Story, CommComm, by George Saunders. I read it. It falls into the section of the styleverse that I don't quite have a handle on, which may simply mean that I need to read more non-genre short stuff. I liked the ending. I don't think I could write a story like that, with that feel. I'm not sure my brain works like that.

I know. I'm supposed to write what I write, and let it find its own home.

Just musing along

For some reason, I have this dream of selling a story to The New Yorker. I nursed it along before I started writing short work, even though I felt that there was no way in hell that they would be interested in anything I wrote. Still, I bought a few issues of the magazine over the past couple of years. Read the fiction offerings. Some of it ranked with the worst stuff I had ever read, although I've read enough similar stuff to think that some literary style was passing me by and I simply didn't get it. Some of it was "eh." They didn't publish "Brokeback Mountain" every month.

So I was curious when I saw that one of their stories won the World Fantasy Award for Short Story, CommComm, by George Saunders. I read it. It falls into the section of the styleverse that I don't quite have a handle on, which may simply mean that I need to read more non-genre short stuff. I liked the ending. I don't think I could write a story like that, with that feel. I'm not sure my brain works like that.

I know. I'm supposed to write what I write, and let it find its own home.