Columnist bite hands that feeds

A vulnerable headline: you just knew it would touch off a firestorm.

The cover of the March 9 Wellington Times showed five swans gliding rather gracefully past the camera lens. The caption ran: “Spring thaw: a herd of swans finds open water as the winter’s ice and snow retreat from the harbour in Wellington.”

Aherd? Isn’t that reserved for sheep and cows? Well, actually, no: the term was correctly used. But it was far too prosaic for Diane Riley of Wellington, who in a letter published in the March 16 issue bewailed the lost opportunity to use another collective noun from “one of the richest languages on the planet.” The angry mobs who threatened to sack and burn the Times’ offices after the caption appeared obviously had similar sentiments.

The Times was fortunate to avoid a grammatical pratfall. I guarantee you that if the paper ran a headline that said “World to end on Sunday after Japans’ nuclear meltdown,” the editor’s mailbox would be filled with letters from readers outraged at the misplacement of the apostrophe. The failed punctuation would be seen as a far better harbinger of the end of civilization as we know it than some far-off nuclear meltdown.

So acute is punctuation sensitivity that the biggest gaffe during Peter Mertens’s otherwise leisurely stroll to the mayoralty was an ad that read “Peter Merten’s priorities.” That was obviously Homer Simpson-sized wrong; and he couldn’t afford to alienate the sizeable grammarian vote. But what correction was required? Traditionalists argued for “Mertens’”, and only begrudgingly accepted the more modern “Mertens’s”, a style that has been adopted by the Times itself. I guess you’ve got to be modern these days.

The Times was also fortunate in avoiding a classic inadvertent double meaning (do you remember “Shot off woman’s leg helps Nicklaus to 66”?). It can sneak up on you in an instant. For example, another (less distinguished) County paper said last fall (and I’m paraphrasing here) “County celebrates as new sewage plant goes online.” The hyperbole is unfortunate enough, but the difficulty was compounded by a headline on a nearby page that stated ‘County students benefit from online experience.’

But grammar and clarity were not Ms. Riley’s subject. Her complaint was with pedestrian language. I think she’s on to something, and it’s worth taking a look at because the Times will shortly be undergoing a style upgrade. Take last week’s paper. The editorial was entitled “A good story.” It could have been labelled “A compelling tale” or “Weaving a convincing yarn.” Only imagination is stopping the Times from selling more copies.

I’d go a step further. Ask any journalist what the most important aspect of a story is, and nine times out of 10 you’ll be told it’s the headline. Newspapers make their reputations on headlines. If the Globe and Mail got hold of the swan story, it would lead with something like

“Canada’s dirty secret: swan care, an in-depth five-part series. Today: the perils of cold water.” Or if it were a Toronto Star story, it would read “GTA unaffected by swan sightings.” And if the Toronto Sun had the story, it might read “Snow, ice retreat. Swans move in. Are your kids safe?” All three of those alternative headlines pack a little more punch than the original.

So why does the Times settle for bland headlines? One theory has it that the staff is so tired at the end of a newsgathering week that it has little or no gas in the tank for imaginative, action-oriented headlines. Another postulates that the swan story was actually an alternative use of the normal technique of softening us up with a cute ‘child’ cover in order to slap us senseless with a deftly argued editorial about sewage plant depreciation rates. Athird suggests that it is a calculated setup: evoking letters to the editor to show advertisers that readers care.

Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that life in and around Wellington in the dog days of winter is a little—not dull, but uneventful perhaps. After all, how exciting can life be if your front page story is about snow and ice retreating? But that’s only a superficial view. We’ve got more going on than you can shake a stick at. We’ve got Maple in the County, a dustup over development charges, a copper theft ring, the Dukes sailing through the playoffs, Quick Wits & Thick as Bricks County History Quiz Night on March 23, Speakeasy Night on March 26, the Windy Village Open Stage on March 30, and Happy Feet, Head for Hillier on April 2. So that explanation doesn’t wash.

Whatever the reason, I’m with Diane Riley. Let’s give those headlines more oomph. “Sloppy op flops, stops as top cops drop copper tube ring”: I hope to read it here soon.