Friday, May 3, 2024

Top 5 This Week

spot_img

Related Posts

Canadian Press makes a total story and headline re-write

A couple of blog entries down, I wrote that the mischievous Canadian Press headline read:

“Harper gets mixed reviews about success of charm offensive”

Now the headline is:
“Harper gets mixed reviews on summer tour to remake his image”.

Still getting “mixed reviews”, but still no explanation in the story (now signed by Dan Dugas) as to where those “mixed reviews” are!  But at least it isn’t a “charm offensive” any more—at least not in the headline!  And now there’s more “effusiveness” added to one of the “effusive” remarks, which nonetheless gives new meaning to the word “effusive”! 

Original:

James Moore of B.C. says Harper has pulled out all the stops to show people that he’s a thoughtful and, more importantly, approachable leader.

(That was supposedly “effusive”.)

Re-write:

British Columbia MP James Moore said Harper’s summer tour charm offensive was paying big dividends.

“Stephen is working his butt off,” Moore said Thursday. “A lot of us who are Monday-morning quarterbacks and latter-day complainers about leadership questions need to just shut up, get in line, and support Stephen.”

Still not effusive, but words are just big dumb annoying, um things, right?

And now he’s shifted blame for the words “charm offensive” from himself—to James Moore?  Did Moore say the words “charm offensive”?  He’s not directly quoted as such, but we’re told James “said” that; to wit: “James Moore said Harper’s summer tour charm offensive was paying big dividends….”.

Mr. Moore could verify that for us!

Joel Johannesen
Follow Joel

Popular Articles