If I am to believe Matthew Garrahan's report for the Financial Times, then Variety is under threat from the blogosphere. Does that mean that Variety writers are beginning to jump ship; and, if so, are they jumping to Reuters? Even more interesting, are they jumping to the International news desk, rather than the Entertainment department? I ask these peculiar questions because I have to wonder who came up with the following headline for a report about an economic summit taking place in Thailand on the island of Phuket:
Asian finmins agree deal on currency swaps
The abbreviation of "financial ministers" to "finmins" is the closest I have ever come to Variety-speak from a purportedly serious news source. (Truth be told, the only place I ever encountered Variety-speak at all outside of Variety itself was in Mad Magazine; and that was back in the days, as my contemporaries are still fond of saying, when Mad was funny!) I know I have a habit of picking on Reuters when gathering examples of the mainstream media at their silliest, but how this particular headline came to be strikes me as an interesting question about current editorial practices. Enquiring minds want to know!
No comments:
Post a Comment