Monday, July 14, 2008
Shameful
One of the things you learn when writing for newspapers and magazines--something that's not at all obvious otherwise--is that the process by which a finished package of article and headline comes together actually consists of multiple, semi-connected parts. Basically you come to an agreement with your editor about the essential thrust and structure of the piece, write it, work with the editor on modifications etc., until it's finished. Then, in an entirely separate process, somebody, often a separate third party, comes up with the title and accompanying blurb--the "hed" and "dek" in publishingese. Then if you're lucky enough to get your piece on the cover, somebody--possibly another person--comes up with another headline, accompanying blurb, etc. Oftentimes you don't even find out what your article is going to be titled until it's published.
This process can produce some strange juxtapositions, particularly when the various parties involved are working from different imperatives. The editor, if she's good at her job, will be concerned with matters such as clarity, logic, concision, fairness, persuasiveness, and accuracy. The headline-writer, by contrast, tends to be more focused on coming up with something pithy and attention-grabbing. And this is doubly true, or more so, for the cover headline-writer, where degrees of grabbiness translate directly into circulation and sales.
Unfortunately, the system can sometimes go awry and result in a "telephone"-like iterative process of escalating sensationalism, as with this piece in today's DC Examiner, which looks at how much money the superintendents of the area's large public school districts are paid. Basically, they do pretty well in the grand scheme of things, making $200,000 to $400,000 per year plus benefits. Which isn't nothing, but as the article notes, these are immensely difficult jobs that involve running some of the largest school districts in the United States. There's not a single quote in the article from anyone who thinks they're overpaid. And as an accompanying sidebar notes, their salaries are chump change compared to what the leaders of big, locally-based private corporations make, i.e. the $31 million pulled down by the CEO of Lockheed Martin.
The hed for this article is "Packages for schools chiefs full of bonuses, lucrative retirement" along with a semi-compensatory dek: "Benefits commensurate with job's long hours, criticism, officials say." This teeters on the edge of sensationalism but I can sort of live with it. The cover, by contrast, is a whole different story: "Fat cat edu-crats: High pay, lavish perks enrich schools chiefs"
That's just shameful. It's journalism of the lowest order. It does a disservice to the author and frankly embarrasses everyone involved with the Examiner, which is a free paper distributed in boxes around the DC metro area. The vast majority of passers-by who glance at that cover aren't going to flip through to page 4 to read the whole article with the lack of criticism, the Lockheed comparison, and all the rest. They're just going to mentally file it away as one more piece of evidence that public education is inefficient and ridiculous, that the government is over-taxing them and wasting their money on feckless bureaucrats. They'll be a little more filled with unjustified anger toward the public sector. They'll "know" one more thing that's actually wrong. All so the Examiner can sell a little more advertising, never mind the truth. -- |
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