Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for February 27, 2021

To God, there is no zero.”

“I still exist.

In other news…

Wiley, that is truly obscure. Who even knows that what sounds so natural has a different spelling

That tombstone is heavy enough that it won’t blow away in a hurricane like the reporter.

From WIktionary: Bury the lede: (idiomatic, US, journalism) To begin a story with details of secondary importance to the reader while postponing more essential points or facts.

A “lede” is the first paragraph of the story. It’s arguably the most important part… but it’s also important because it introduces the whole article.

He must have buried his name at the end of his obituary.

déjà vu https://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2017/01/28

Lead?

Nobody redes newspapers anymore.

Here’s one reporters humble opinion.

https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2019/lead-vs-lede-roy-peter-clark-has-the-definitive-answer-at-last/

Then again, you can lede a reporter to a typewriter but you can’t make him/her write.

Lede us not into temptation, but deliver us from drivel.

I’m so sad at the demise of newspapers…. I can’t even hear ours hit the pavement in the morning there’s so little substance. I used to get three newspapers a day, morning and late day local paper and the Walk Street Journal. I read online but it’s not the same.

Guess he didn’t get the lede out.

“Lede – The opening sentence or paragraph of a news article, summarizing the most important aspects of the story.

EX: “The lede has been rewritten and the headline changed.”"

A lede is the introductory section in a news article. The idiom “bury the lede” refers to hiding the most important and relevant pieces of a story within other distracting information. This is a universally used and recognized saying within the industry.

The unique spelling of lede (lēd) is said to have originated as a way to avoid confusion and differentiate it from lead (led) which referred to the strip of metal that would separate lines of type in the hot-metal type era from the late 19th century until the 1960s. Many modern non-journalists are familiar with line spacing being referred to as “leading” as some of the more professional level desktop publishing/typesetting software programs used that established industry term.

What passes for modern journalism is less: RAKE MUCK

and more SPEAK MUCK – at least in some “news” networks . . .

Wonderfully and charmingly obscure!

The “News” and “True Reporting” are dead or dying. In Germany thousands of demonstrating farmers drove into Berlin and surrounded its city hall in their tractors. You would think it was worth reporting but there was nothing on the so called “News” about it.

And the lede is officially buried.

Shouldn’t it be “UNVERIFIED REPORTER”?

I presume the lede has been replaced by the chinwag in these internet days. You know, rally around a camera, gather a few of your chum(p)s and prattle about the news of the day/week/et al and post it on the internet. If you do not have chummies, you can always rant and rave on your own.The amount of chinwaggers and chinwagging going around is almost jaw-dropping.

I guess it’s true that “News” has left us for good and all that’s left is the garbage opinion shows on CNN, FOX, etc,,, Wouldn’t it be great to have investigative journalism again that reports only facts? I guess since the almighty dollar rules now there isn’t any money in real news anymore

The Lede had to have then entire content of the story summed up, on the assumption that the reader would go no further than the first graph. Been there, done that: I was a newspaper reporter.

Is there a special section in the cemetery where they bury the truth?

Buried the Lede after all.

The reporter is likely unknown because s/he buried the lede. And got fired as a result, or at least never got a by-line.

Who said, “the pun is the lowest form of humor”?

I’ll bet a dime there is some kid looking at this and wondering, what the heck is that thing on top. …sigh

I just dropped in to see how many people would say “lede? You can can’t spell lead ?”

I KNOW what “lede” means, but what’s that quaint object on top of the tombstone???? (Grin) Hundreds of years ago, in typing class, I can still hear the teacher droning," right hand, first finger, j,j,j,j, reach, h,h,h,h, second finger, k,k,k,k. . ." the third most useful skill, after reading and adding/subtracting/multiplying/dividing, that I ever earned.

I miss paper journalism. It is what I grew up with and I was taught how to read it critically.

I don’t get the same satisfaction from TV or video news. It’s simply the way I am built, I learn better by touching, doing and reading than I do by hearing. Also TV news has only a fraction of the information that a printed article has. Fully a third of evening news is commercials and how much justice can you do to an event in 15 seconds?

Nonetheless, I do pick up on the biases in broadcast news and a typical mainstream news broadcast has two to four alarms in a 30-minute segment. For Fox news, the klaxon goes on within seconds and stays on.

I read my news on the internet. However, the God of the Bots, in its infinite wisdom of what ads to show me, presents me with news that it thinks I would agree with reading. So I have to “drill down” to see what other services are reporting the same stories. Sometimes I deliberately go to the Fox site so as to put it on my bot’s radar.

At least the internet does allow me to drill down. In the old days, I read only one newspaper. If I wanted a different point of view, I would have to buy another paper. Fortunately, I lived in New York City and there were several newspapers from which to choose. Most towns were “one-horse newspaper” towns.

I remember watching the line-o-typist operate the big mechanical machine at the Cucamonga Times back in the ’50s. Mr. Foster, the publisher, would set each page by hand block by block. Arrange the issue page by page then do a full print run of the paper all in a day and night. Thanks for reminding me.

who? what? why? where? when?

That would take “the rest of the story” to a page that has adverti$ement$. Alternatively, the editor could play to their base by putting out of context quotes on page one, and bury the details that explain the context on another page, figuring most people won’t read past page 1 ( like when social media posts outrageous pictures but is honest enough to include a link to snopes… most people will not bother to follow the link. ) Alternatively, you could have an article that the editor wants you to read, and a second article that is much more important that the editor would prefer you don’t read. Fill most of page one with the story the editor wants people to read, and only give the more important story a few inches on page one, hiding the most important and relevant parts of that article deep in the middle of the paper, where many readers won’t bother to fast-forward to because it is easier to read those large multi-folded newspaper pages sequentially.

The sad fact, in my opinion, is there are very few good reporters out there. Soon instead of the unknown it will be the last of the real reporters.

Learned something today—thanks Wiley.

Alternative facts reporter is now in an alternative state in an alternative realm.

Without journalists, there are no democracies. Plain and simple. Support your local paper, support all newspapers and support all the world’s brave journalists.

Looking it up shows that it’s an Old English/Germanic word. Probably used to be pronounced lee-deh and it’s changed over the years along with the meaning.

Looking it up shows that it’s an Old English/Germanic word, meaning man or people. Probably used to be pronounced lee-deh and it’s changed over the years along with the meaning.

Feckin brilliant.

Lois Lane’s on Line Three.

Darn! He’ll never get to write how much better Biden is as President than Evil Orange Man.

The effect of broadcast media on newspapers can be easily described. There are 180 houses in our subdivision. A few years ago you’d find paper on nearly every drive. Nowadays, there’s one about every six houses and the subscribers complain regularly about the contents and the appearance.

The local paper used to run to 3-4 sections, lots of local and national news, with display ads [I designed and sold them for the paper in the 1960’s], award winning, reasonable, and reasoned editorials, solid op-ed page, sports, tv, comics, obits, etc. Won lots of regional and national awards among statewide newspapers in its class.

Ever since the big media conglomerate scooped it up, it’s down to tabloid design, watery news, 2 leftover opinion writers of excellent abilities, shrunken comics, shorter, pricier obits, and very few ads to support local businesses, while advancing the political biases of the owners. The crowning insult is that the call center for delivery problems is located in another state, and, if the call needs to be transferred to another office, that’s in a third state. There is no home base.

Newspapers now seem to resemble those of the late 18th-early 19th centuries. A sad retrogression that kind of mirrors the social regressions of current times. Guess it’s true, one gets what one deserves.

Nice.

Gah-ROOOAAAANNNN!!! (And I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.)

What is Life, but change?

I have noticed online stories frequently forget the who, what, where, when or why? If it does neglect one or more of these, it is little more than clickbait. Especially bad are parochial stories, which are put on the Internet for some reason, even though you are not even told in which state the event occurred.

Reporter is a gross misnomer. Manipulative egoist might be more appropriate.

I. Hate. You.

A reporter’s final DyLine…

As a person who worked on a newspaper….lede means the opening line (or paragraph) of a news story…

Too many stories do just that!

He’s now moved on to an underground paper.

A simple, obvious pun doesn’t mean it’s still not funny to the 0.01% of the population who gets it. Happy we still carry you in the Press Democrat (Cathy B just retired)

I love the detail of the typewriter on top of the monument!

Here’s how inconsistent the English language often gets:

– verb present tense: read lead (both rhyme with “bead”)

– verb past tense: read led (both rhyme with “bed”)

– noun singular: red lead (both also rhyme with “bed”)

So many comments; too little time. I gave up on LuAnn with its >300 comments, most of which are très boring.

As every non-journalist scrambles to their G**gle app.

Excellent!

Get the lede out!

Anon.

Another reason I gave up on journalism school and became a Welder….What I made could not be edited toslush so as not to “Offend” anyone…and some of it is still in existence, and even orbiting this earth….

A monument to those who told the truth.

Typing on a Mac I can get several dashes:

- common hyphen – option hyphen — shift option hyphen