Fun_People Archive
21 Apr
Headline Bull

Date: Fri, 21 Apr 95 19:35:51 PDT
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Headline Bull

Forwarded-by: mlinksva@netcom.com (Mike Linksvayer)
From: BONG Bull No. 318!

HEADS WILL ROLL.  Jenn Christman (S4@acns.umd.edu) at the
University of Maryland reports: "An editor during one on my internships
for a newspaper (I am just too professional to name. OK, it was The
Carroll County Times in Westminster, Md.) came up behind me once,
screaming for no apparent reason, 'It's a phone, it's a football! It's a
phone, it's a football!'  That was before he rolled on the floor in a
fit of laughter. Whatever.  Can I have a job? I will be a reporting
intern for The Virginian-Pilot this summer. Currently I am a senior
journalism major at the University of Maryland and business reporter
with Capital News Service (a statewide wire service affiliated with the
University) in Annapolis, Md. I've interned at The Carroll County Times
in Westminster, Md. and the Daily Record, a business and legal daily, in
Baltimore. Not to mention that I am in the proverbial know of more Brady
Bunch trivia than should be allowed by law."
     BONG's Placement and Outa-the-Nest-Kicking Committee recommends the
enthusiastic and obviously battle-hardened Jenn Christman to all
chapters.
     -- Parker Barss Donham (pdonham@fox.nstn.ca), formerly Harvard
Crimson executive editor, now Bras d'Or, Nova Scotia bureau chief,
offers, "How about the (possibly apocryphal) Harvard Crimson headline
when then-Harvard president Nathan M. Pusey called a rare news
conference to oppose plans for an office tower on stilts above Harvard
Square: "Pusey Fights Erection in Square."
     -- John Flinn at San Francisco Examiner (Jnflinn@aol.com)
recalls a headline that ran in the San Jose Mercury News about 10 years
ago. William Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, and his wife had
applied for a zoning variance to erect a large barbed-wire fence around
their home in Palo Alto ("PA" in headline shorthand). They were turned
down, and the Merc cleverly headlined: "PA pricks hope for new fence."
     -- Jim Nash, associate editor of the Business Journal (San Jose and
the Silicon Valley, Calif.), contributes, "Thought I'd tell you about one
of the rare times the unadulterated truth saw print. Jon Young, the
photographer at the Crystal Lake (Ill.) Herald had just gotten out of the
darkroom after printing up a photo of a surprise spring snowfall of several
inches in a couple hours. He wrote a cutline, but could not get the weather
service to return his call asking for an official statement on inches. Jon
took off for dinner. The number arrived after he left, [it was "nearly
seven," no doubt. -psl] and was inserted by a rushed reporter.  When Jon
called later to see if there were any questions for him, he was told there
were none.  The cutline was pasted up thusly:
     "'Arthur Loy, foreground, and his mother, Judy, used teamwork Sunday
to clear their sidewalk of nearly seven inches of snow that fell Saturday
evening. Though a shitload of snow fell Saturday, snowplow crews had most
major streets cleared by Sunday.'
     "'Twas the only edition of the Herald that has ever sold out."

© 1995 Peter Langston