Juxtaposition: Photos, Headlines and Stories

[pzarquon]

Both Jay Leno and David Letterman have comedy bits where they show real newspaper clips which, for one reason or another, are unintentionally funny. Our own dailies have made the cut, in fact.

Whether it's a headline about prostitution printed next to a giant photo of a nun, or the awkward use of a person's name that could also be a naughty verb depending on the context, I enjoy accidental juxtaposition and awkward placement as much as the next layout geek.

Have you spotted any lately?

I ask because of a recent story-photo package in Ka Leo, where it looks like a piece of "wild art" was shoehorned into an unrelated piece... with unintended consequences for the photo's subject. I envision the following exchange:

Editor: Go out and get a photo of someone smoking.
Photographer: Why?
Editor: Just some wire story about bad habits or something out of Texas. I don't want to bother with localizing the copy... let's just add our own picture.
Photographer: Okay, I got your smoking photo!
Editor: Great. Let's get it to the newsdesk. They're laying out that "smokers can be sluts" story.

Here's hoping English senior Wei Ping Lum has a sense of humor...

[dick]

Re: Juxtaposition: Photos, Headlines and Stories

I saw this as well and thought it was interesting. And, I wonder if the subject in the photo in her teens? I'm assuming the photog disclosed to the subject the reason for taking the photo.

[pzarquon]

Re: Juxtaposition: Photos, Headlines and Stories

This isn't juxtaposition, or an error, just another interesting headline:

Legal head winds buffet 1-eyed pilot

The story itself is interesting enough, but the hed took some pondering. "Legal head" or "head winds"? (I guess AP style for "headwinds" is "head winds"?) Winds as in "breeze" or "wind a watch"? Buffet as in "hit or beat" or as in "dinner"? Oh, a one-eyed pilot is waging a legal battle. Gotcha.

Perhaps a little too clever for a hed? Or perhaps I'm too dense a reader...

[lavagal]

Re: Juxtaposition: Photos, Headlines and Stories

This isn't juxtaposition, or an error, just another interesting headline:

Legal head winds buffet 1-eyed pilot

The story itself is interesting enough, but the hed took some pondering. "Legal head" or "head winds"? (I guess AP style for "headwinds" is "head winds"?) Winds as in "breeze" or "wind a watch"? Buffet as in "hit or beat" or as in "dinner"? Oh, a one-eyed pilot is waging a legal battle. Gotcha.

Perhaps a little too clever for a hed? Or perhaps I'm too dense a reader...

I saw that too and felt that what we had here was a frustrated copy editor too dang clever for the bottom feeder masses who read the newspaper.

Whenever they write a headline do they feel as though they are "casting pearls before swine?"

Or do they hope someone takes notice, remarks about it at HT and says there is hope yet?

[bcliquot]

Re: Juxtaposition: Photos, Headlines and Stories

[QUOTE=lavagal]... Whenever they write a headline do they feel as though they are "casting pearls before swine?" ..

Duh, I dunno but what was the meaning of that headline?

[kimo55]

Re: Juxtaposition: Photos, Headlines and Stories

aaaaggh! whenever i see a headline such as that, (and it's often enuff), i go screaming outta the room, shreds of newspaper in my trail, as my feeble mind, immediately feeling the onset of the headache induced by an overly obtuse headline, makes me think any further reading will result in a bald head, as i would tear my hair out if i even attempted it...

[kimo55]

Re: Juxtaposition: Photos, Headlines and Stories

I mean what da hellza number one dash eyed pilot anyway?!
and he has got a head for the justice system and he winds down or up at the buffet table? While listening to Jimmy Buffet?!

No, I know; he is in a bathroom in a lawyer's office.
...and he breaks winds when he eyed the number one Jummy Buffet hit single.

maybe.

aaahhh. as I say.

[LikaNui]

Re: Juxtaposition: Photos, Headlines and Stories

Today's "Windward People" section in the Advertiser has a story about the Outdoor Circle on page 2, with a photo of two ladies. The caption under the photo says:

Name of ladies

Oops. Somebody forgot sumptin.

[pzarquon]

Re: Juxtaposition: Photos, Headlines and Stories

Digging through the week's pile of Star-Bulletin issues just now, I remembered this March 13 headline on A-1:

Big wind poleaxes Nanakuli

And for a moment I sighed over what I guessed was another copy editor with a new thesaurus run amok. But my dismay softened a bit when I realized the story was about how high winds toppled utility poles along Farrington Highway. Making "poleaxes" a somewhat obscure, but moderately clever, choice of verb.

Not surprisingly, though, the final hed for Mary Vorsino's piece appears to have been Mystery winds hammer Waianae.

[buzz1941]

Re: Juxtaposition: Photos, Headlines and Stories

Digging through the week's pile of Star-Bulletin issues just now, I remembered this March 13 headline on A-1:

Big wind poleaxes Nanakuli

Blaming people of Polish extraction?

[zztype]

Re: Juxtaposition: Photos, Headlines and Stories

Digging through the week's pile of Star-Bulletin issues just now, I remembered this March 13 headline on A-1:

Big wind poleaxes Nanakuli

Not surprisingly, though, the final hed for Mary Vorsino's piece appears to have been Mystery winds hammer Waianae.

No, no, no. You have it backwards. The "mystery" hed was for the early edition, street sales. (That is the edition we base the online edition on.)
http://starbulletin.com/2006/03/13/news/a1.jpg

The "poleaxe" headline was in the night final, home delivery edition. I don't have a screen shot/picture of that.

Taken by itself, the poleaxe headline sounds wierd, but if you put that headline above a photo of a row of toppled telephone poles, it's amazingly appropriate. (And yes, I immediately looked up "poleaxe" in the dictionary when I saw the hed!)

Blaine