So how many news reports, articles and blog entries will bear the title "Crikey!" this week?
I'd play Count the Crikeys but it seems a little mean and I'm not in the mood. Anyone who wants can count the cliche's themselves at the search-engine link above. Sorry, guys...but using the signature Steve Irwin catch-phrase as a headline is inapropriate humor at best and insulting at worst.
Obviously, the reader is being led by the writer to imagine that a hurt and surprised Crikey! was one of Irwin's last words after being mortally wounded by a stingray. Gallows humor, sure. Yet not professional.
I really wanted better from career and amateur journalists in announcing Steve Irwin's death by misadventure. Jerks.
Here's a link to a well-written New York Times article about Steve Irwin, the fatal incident and some back story: Australia’s ‘Crocodile Hunter’ Killed by Stingray.
This is how you do it. Please take notes.
Tags: Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter
Monday, September 04, 2006
Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter: 1962-2006
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Actually, that's an AP newswire story.
ReplyDeleteTrue. Via the NYT site, though. Other sites through whatever service they subscribe to have gone with the Crikey headline.
ReplyDeleteUsing the catchphrase, pretty tacky.
ReplyDeleteUsing the catchphrase as the caption to an editiorial cartoon where Steve arrives at a heaven where the pearly gates are staffed by crocodiles, even tackier.
(Either in the New York Daily News or New York Post--not sure which paper I was looking at in someone else's paws on the subway yesterday.)
http://cagle.msnbc.com/news/SteveIrwin/main.asp
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