After my previous post all about the traditional sense of what “news” means, I thought I’d share this item that just came to my attention:
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Vampires have taken over the Los Angeles Times.
Beneath the masthead of Friday print editions is a full front-page ad for HBO’s “True Blood.”
A black-and-white close-up of star Stephen Moyer with blood dripping from his mouth dominates the page, which is all that’s visible in newsboxes around town.
No other stories or photos appear on the cover, which is actually a separate four-page broadsheet touting Sunday’s season premiere. Readers remove the wrap to find the regular front page, anchored by the Lakers’s Thursday win over Orlando.
Times spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan says it’s the first time newspaper has put its masthead above an advertisement wrapping the paper. She declined to discuss how much the paper charged for the ad.
You can see the paper in a rack at this link.
By the way — on that second link, someone observes, “They’ve gotten flack for running advertisements on the front page before.”
Of course, that’s wrong. A “flack” is a publicist or someone who works in public relations. What he or she meant to say was “flak.” It comes from the German word, Fliegerabwehrkanone. Get it? FLiegerAbwehrKanone. It referred originally to anti-aircraft artillery. “Catching flak” meant to be on the receiving end of such fire. It later came to refer to receiving criticism to an extent that felt like getting hit by triple-A.
I love knowing stuff like that.
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Copyediting is such an under-rated skill.
Your last link in the above post leads me to opine that Wikipedia is the greatest thing since sliced bread (actually I prefer to slice my own bread). I can spend many happy hours following hyperlinks and acquiring knowledge on just about anything. And, like the universe, it continues to grow.
You can get flak from flacks, but not flacks from flak. Easy as that, people.
You say flacks like it’s a bad thing. Or am I just paranoid.
Papers are losing money like no other time in history. Would The State under your control have not taken the money offered for this one-day front page advertisement? It probably single-handedly paid the salaries for a handful of newspaper employees for the next year.
True, but there are standards. The National Enquirer probably still makes money but who wants to see mainstream newspapers go that route (maybe more than I suspect).
Remember when the Sunday editions came with the comic section on the outside? Was Blondie and Beetle Baily more important than the front page news? If this is all people have to bitch about, things must be pretty good.
Beetle and Blondie ain’t vampires…
“I love knowing stuff like that.”
but the person you corrected doesn’t.
“The National Enquirer probably still makes money but who wants to see mainstream newspapers go that route”
wait… aren’t they now?!