Articles Archive for 20 April 2005
Following up on my previous post, the following lead comes from an article on philly.com. Though the headline of the article is a lame “Goode kin held in attack” (referring to former Philly mayor Wilson Goode), check out the opening:
Riding a high from heroin, Xanax and crack cocaine, James Goode, nephew of former Mayor Wilson Goode, allegedly smacked around a naked woman strapped to a chair and hit her in the head with a hammer.
Now that’s how you grab your readers. Heroin, Xanax, crack cocaine, smacked, naked woman, strapped, hit, and hammer are all awesomely descriptive words. I mean, how can you not keep reading? Please read the article. It’s at once hilarious and terribly sad. But more hilarious. And thank you philly.com for coming through for me.
Man, I should be a writing teacher or something. Or maybe I should stop reading articles on the internet and actually do some work that pertains to my real job. Whatever.
This article’s headline is WAY better than the article itself. When I saw “Elephants rampage through Seoul”, I expected truckloads of Koreans trampled to death, cars being flipped by insane, angry elephants who may or may not be breathing fire, buildings burning, and chaos everywhere. Instead I get:
Television footage showed the elephant at one time standing in the small garden of a house
and one woman who got hit with an elephant trunk. WTF? Really elephants? This is the best you could do?
Also, kudos to the landlord of the woman who got hit for his intense recounting of the incident:
“She fell, and I ran away because I was scared,” said Roh’s landlord, Lee Hye-ja.
I don’t know if this guy’s a full-time landlord, but I’m guessing The New York Times and National Geographic will be beating down his door shortly to hire him asap. He just witnessed an elephant charge and all he’s got is, “She fell, and I ran away because I was scared?” Nothing about the anger in the elephant’s eyes as he lumbered toward the small, terrified woman? Nothing about how time stood still as one ton of mass charged recklessly at the unsuspecting woman screaming bloody murder? Nothing about how the entire scene unfolded in less than three seconds but it felt like an eternity and he was sexually aroused by the whole thing? Jeers to you, Lee Hye-ja. Jeers to you.
One minor injury and an elephant in a garden does not a rampage make, CNN. Assholes. Way to get me all excited just to let me down. Might I suggest the headline, “Elephants get loose in Seoul, disappoint fans of rampages” or “Elephants escape, meander in Seoul” or “Elephants escape from zoo, just sort of hang out.” Any one of these are better than your headline. Thank you, and you’re welcome.