February 2014 Archives
Fox News has, by far, the worst news ticker ever in the history of ever. They give way too much information, they spell out long words they don't need to spell out, and shorten words there's no need to shorten, as well as words that are confusing when shortened.
And this is their normal case. Every single story is terrible. Here is an example I took at random just now:
RUSSIAN SECURITY FORCES HAVE REPORTEDLY KILLED A MIILITANT SUSPECTED OF TRAINING TWO SUICIDE BOMBERS WHO STRUCK THE CITY OF VOLGOGRAD IN DEC... THE ATTACKS ON A TRAIN STATION AND TROLLEYBUS KILLED 34 PEOPLE... LAST WK, COUNTERTERRORISM OFFICIALS ID'D THE SUSPECTED BOMBERS AS BEING PART OF A DAGESTAN-BASED TERROR GROUP
Most of that is unimportant. What do we need to know? Who was killed, who killed him, and why he was killed. That's it. This is a reasonable alternative:
RUSSIAN FORCES KILL SUSPECT LINKED TO VOLGOGRAD BOMBING KILLING 34 IN DECEMBER
But let's see if we missed something by going over it piece-by-piece. "RUSSIAN SECURITY FORCES". It seems to me that "security" is not important: whether it was military or security or police doesn't matter to the story, not for a headline. "HAVE REPORTEDLY KILLED". Maybe we add "reportedly" or a suitable synonym to our headline. "A MIILITANT SUSPECTED OF TRAINING TWO SUICIDE BOMBERS WHO STRUCK THE CITY OF VOLGOGRAD IN DEC". While it is interesting what he did, what really matters is that he is suspected of involvement in the attack. "THE ATTACKS ON A TRAIN STATION AND TROLLEYBUS KILLED 34 PEOPLE". None of that matters, except that 34 people died. "LAST WK, COUNTERTERRORISM OFFICIALS ID'D THE SUSPECTED BOMBERS AS BEING PART OF A DAGESTAN-BASED TERROR GROUP". None of that matters at all, in any way. But even if you disagree, you can simply add that it is based in Dagestan. So worst case, we get:
RUSSIAN FORCES REPORTEDLY KILL SUSPECT LINKED TO VOLGOGRAD BOMBING, BY DAGESTAN-BASED TERROR GROUP, KILLING 34 IN DECEMBER
Still a massive improvement. They've been doing this nonsense for many years, and they should fix it.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
