Who did what to whom?

No peeking: Who (or what) is doing what (or whom) to whom (or what) in the story?

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The black guy's playing golf again!

Today's exercise: Pretend you're a GretaWire reader and think of five comments you'd leave on this story. Now go to the real thing and see how long it takes to find your comments!

Today in distractions

Never let it be said that nobody at Fox ever (ahem) reads the comments. Here's the original lede:

A team spearheaded by the deep-sea explorer who found the Titanic has been searching a little-known ship graveyard located in the Gulf of Mexico that includes the only known Nazi U-boat to have sunk during WWII and a few of its targets, MyFoxTampaBay.com reported.

And the one available now (which seems to have disappeared from the front page):

A team spearheaded by the deep-sea explorer who found the Titanic has been searching a little-known ship graveyard located in the Gulf of Mexico that includes the only known Nazi U-boat to have sunk in the Gulf of Mexico during WWII and a few of its targets, MyFoxTampaBay.com reported.

Which isn't entirely true. What the local Fox affiliate reported was:

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The black guy's playing golf basketball again

How are things on the White House beat there, Washington Times?

He’s the world’s most powerful armchair quarterback, and President Obama hasn’t shied away from weighing in on the link between concussions and football, the furor over the Washington Redskins‘ name and other high-profile sports controversies of the day.

You can see why it took a while to get the tone of the hed just right. Clearly not the deck from the 1A centerpiece:

Obama takes Bush lead on controversy and runs with it

The HTML kind of fades out with "When it comes to sports controversies, Obama is eager." And the Web version went back and forth from morning to evening too:

Which I guess finally sums it up: The Kenyan still wants to imitate Bush, and he's not just eager to jump in, he's a mean drunk about it. Right, White House beat?
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Free curly fries: Hat trick of error

We're up to two corrections so far on this Personal Health column at the Nation's Newspaper of Record. Should we go for the hat trick?

Decades ago, I met a surprisingly quiet, withdrawn young man. Surprising because I knew his bright, vibrant wife and wondered what had attracted her to him. He barely participated in conversations even at friendly family gatherings.

Some years later, the same man seemed to have undergone a personality transplant. He was forthright and funny, intelligent and interesting. I asked a mutual friend what could have accounted for the apparent transformation.

The answer: surgical removal of his chronically inflamed colon to treat ulcerative colitis. Once free of painful abdominal cramps, persistent diarrhea, fatigue, nausea and the depression and anxiety that can accompany these symptoms, he came to life. Even having to cope with a colostomy bag did not dampen his newly awakened spirit.

Uh, no. If his colon was removed, he has an ileostomy, not a colostomy. (The operation is a colectomy or proctocolectomy.) The writer's pop-psych opinions are a little bizarre, but the site of the ostomy is a matter of anatomy, not opinion.

Regular readers may have noted the low opinion held in these parts of reader comments in general. It's worth noting that not only has one reader picked on the writer's characterization of surgery as "rather draconian," but another has already ("five days ago," as it's marked) pointed out the factual error. When can we pick up our curly fries?

Willie Gillis in flying Winnebago

A: The amount of time it takes for a story about a Norman Rockwell painting to become an Obama story at Fox.
Q: What is "about two hours," Alex?

Our story in brief: Rockwell donated one of his "Willie Gillis" paintings to a high school principal who had been seeking to buy a senior class present. Now, mindful of the value of Rockwells, town officials have decided to put "Willie Gillis in Convoy" up for auction, with the proceeds destined for "an educational endowment for the town's schools."

You could get out your J104 textbook and try to figure out which of the basic news values (proximity, conflict, timeliness, and so forth) put this among Fox's top four stories this morning, or you could just let the commenters tell you:

This auction should be dis-allowed. The painting is public property.

Don't say that, then the Feds will be in charge of the redistribution of the proceeds. Meaning the proceeds will be used to restock O's flying Winnebago (AF1).

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No comment

What depths of unspeakable evil must be on display for the Fair 'n' Balanced Network to close reader comments on a story?
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Advances in hed writing

Behold, a genuine break- through in the art of hed writing from the friends at the Fair 'n' Balanced Network!

If you're like me, you probably wasted a lot of time in your early career trying to take things from the story and turn them into headlines. If we'd only known then what we know now! Engineers at Fox have apparently figured out a way to write the hed without any reference at all to the story. You can root all the way to the bottom of this epic and find no support at all for the assertion (the purported "ban" on "Islam" and "jihad") in the hed.

But it's not just a time-saver! See, if you want to get a particular reaction out of your audience, you no longer have to wait for the right story to come along. Just put the right hed on and you'll get results in seconds:

Are we as a nation sleeping? Wake up America before irreparable damage is done to our country. I never thought I would say this but this SOB needs to be impeached. Is this the beginning of the downfall of the United States, I hope not, but it will be if we keep on sleeping.

I can't stand this niggger* any more. If he wants holy war, we'll give him a dose of Christian justice. An eye for an eye....

As far as I am concerned, the name obama should be eliminated from the books. .. it's a very scary name to the average citizen

This is just another way for the Big O to divert Americans attention from other far more important topics such as his failure with the economy and his dissidence with health care. He has just proven his alliance to anti-Americanism.

So at what point do the Republicans voice an opposing position against this M-sl-m** President? Just keep sitting back everyone and let him destroy this country! Does anyone realize that if we wait until the November vote for change it will be too late!! SOMEONE PLEASE STOP THIS MADMAN!!!!

Obama is going to do what he can to change the USA. As you all watch this happen consider this... You all think that Obama will be voted out in 2012, and I tell you, don't think that he (Obama) doesn't know this. There will NEVER be a vote in 2012 for President. Think about it...

* Spelling it with three g's (or two q's) apparently gets you past the filter at Fox.
** Same idea.