Fun_People Archive
29 May
Bits of Bull No. 375!

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Wed, 29 May 96 16:47:53 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: Bits of Bull No. 375!

Forwarded-by: mlinksva@netcom.com (Mike Linksvayer)
Excerpted-from: BONG Bull No. 375!

  Copyright (c) 1996 by BONG.  All rights reserved.

	...

SUCH A DEAL.  Kathy Roos, a writer/editor for the Office of College
Relations at Smith College, reported, "Your telling of the story of the
bride/picnic cutline mix-up ("A lot of white meat here!") reminded me of an
interesting juxtaposition I saw in a small daily paper in Ohio. (Sorry, I
don't want to commit myself to naming it -- it was years ago, and although
my memory may be what it used to be, it never was much.) Underneath a
picture of yet another blushing bride was a head for a story about tag
sales:  One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Treasure.

	...

ALL RIGHT, EVERYBODY, LET'S GET THOSE TEMPLATES UPDATED.  Because if you
don't, you'll be where the Collegiate Times of Virginia Tech is now.  A
college official slapped an $850,000 lawsuit against the independent college
paper, which has no more editions to print until July, even to do a
retraction.
     Now of course this wouldn't have happened if an editor had changed the
words in the sample type that pops up when you hit the command key, but that
doesn't diminish the chagrin.  It's just really hard to explain how you
wanted to put the official's title, assistant to the vice president for
student affairs, but an editing gaffe led to "Director of Butt Licking"
being published.
     No jury will believe it was all an accident, even if all the editors
agree when the lawyer asks if this was the first time for this particular
slander.  Bringing up that other time several years ago, well, no, don't
tell the jury about that.  And maybe they won't find out about the paper's
$1 million libel insurance policy either.  Everybody else, change those
templates.

CQ ALL TO SEE IF THEY'RE RIGHT.  Joshua Tanzer (batorev@eden.rutgers.edu)
asks whether BONG can define the newsroom shorthand "CQ" (it could and did:
"Correct," and never mind what amateur radio operators mean by CQ).
     "A little story, though," he added.  "Our paper had very few writers
who bothered to give us the courtesy of a CQ, but there was one who did it
loyally in all her copy. One time there was a mistake and somebody asked
her why she had put a CQ on it.
     "'Doesn't that mean check?' she said.  She'd been guessing at people's
names all along and figuring the copy desk would somehow check it out."

	...

Resplendent in green eyeshade and pencil smudge, BONG Chief Copyboy Charley
Stough, Dayton Daily News, 45 S. Ludlow St., Dayton, Ohio 45401 doffs a
uniform beany to NYTNS informers worldwide.  E-mail copyboy@dma.org.  Phone
(513) 225-2445 after 3 p.m. eastern.  Fax 225-2489.

© 1996 Peter Langston