Friday, May 19, 2006

Dumbest reader of the (still-young) century

Just so's you don't think we here at HEADSUP-L don't complain about anybody but journalists, a nominee is in for the coveted Here's Your Money Back, and Please Try Not To Be Seen Reading Our Product In Public Ever Again Award:

Durango woman sues Herald for 9/11 cover up
Plaintiff wants $7,500 compensation for research expenses
A Durango woman issued a court summons to The Durango Herald, its publisher and its chairman on Thursday, demanding the newspaper compensate her for her attempt to uncover what she believes is a conspiracy to suppress the truth about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Jane Pflaintiff, representing a group called Caring for Our Community, obtained a summons requiring the Herald to appear in La Plata County small-claims court on June 1.

Pflaintiff wants $7,500 compensation - the maximum allowed in small-claims court - for expenses incurred researching the attacks and publicizing her view of what happened.

Pflaintiff wrote in her petition, "The defendants are guilty of complicity in covering up the truth about the 9/11 tragedy, thus making every one of them accomplices in the greatest crime of this century."

Well, enough about her (though if you can actually sue the media for the hours you put in researching their limitless sins, the Official HEADSUP-L Mountain Chalet is a lot closer to reality than it appeared this morning). Let's remind the copy desk not to say "sues for"; let's be sure to look up our phrasal combinations (forgodsake, the noun was "cover-up" as far back as Chandler's Black Mask days), and .... well, let's fire up the scanning electron microscope so the publisher can find his hem-hem-hems and call the plaintiff out as the foil-helmed orclet of Betelgeuse that she appears, on the evidence, to be. "I don't think the Herald is withholding anything that pertains to a conspiracy" -- well, suppose you go and check, there's a good publisher.

Here are some convenient slogans to start with:
1) The customer is not always right.
2) When the customer is wrong, let's tell him or her that his or her poetry smells and kick him or her downstairs.
3) With boots.

Don't get us wrong here. Lots of goobers inside the media and out have some pretty hefty bills outstanding for their role in the general clogging of the public brain space -- particularly the part wherein we talk about the Fractious Near East. But let's try to keep the decks clear in case we have a chance to engage a real target, OK?

(Thanks to the irreplaceable Romenesko for the original posting.)

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