One Guy's Viewpoint

I Finally Learned to Read a Modern Newspaper

Oh, yes, great news. I finally learned how to read the Houston Chronicle. I spent a lot of time yesterday with the Sunday paper, going through a lot of stories. My conclusion? On average the best place to begin is paragraph four. The first three contain anecdotal stuff. Paragraphs four and five have what passes for a lead. In six it's back to the anecdotal fluff, and, then, from about seven on it's pretty much a normal news story. If I don't find facts in paragraph four, I can read backward a little ways. There's no reason to go back too far as there may be nothing of value anywhere in the story anyway.

This rule served me well through all the sections I looked at. A front page article about Jeb Bush only had three paragraphs there. I had to hunt up the continuation on page 11 or whatever to get to the point of the story. Except for the experiment I was conducting, I wouldn't have gone to the trouble. The sports page was the same. The factual details of Andy Pettitte's stinker Saturday night (something that has become routine this season) were in paragraphs three, four and five. Great! Now I know about how far down in a story to look for the final score.

Those first three paragraphs, give or take, are how the Chronicle works its spin into a supposedly objective news story. And they have a politically correct agenda for almost everyting that comes up.

In the old days the lead was the lead. All the pertinent questions were answered there at the top of the story: who, what , where, when, whatever. No longer, not in the Houston paper.

Tell me, is it just the Chronicle? Or is this commonplace these days?

posted by Burt @ 8:04 PM