Praha, Pivo, Prosim

Speaking as someone who never took a journalism course, I’m fairly sure that the point of a headline is to provide a snippet of information regarding the article to follow. Most times, the headlines give accurate stats and other imperative information as to the content. Other times, article headlines (and sometimes the articles themselves) are just fucking stupid. I’m talking about the really obvious ones that, unless you are completely oblivious to the human condition, just read LAME, STUPID, and generally MORONIC. On that note, I give you this…

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I’m not trying to be a heartless bitch on this because it’s a really sad scenario for any family and I know they are devastated and inconsolable. But seriously, how ELSE are the parents expected to feel? Should it read, ‘Travolta & Preston Celebrate Tragic Death of Son with Trip to Disneyworld; Eat Hot Dogs and Enjoy Witch Mountain,’ instead? While this screencap is from CNN.com, they are not the only guilty party in this literary faux pas. In fact, I can’t think of any other organization that doesn’t publish similar articles. Another that comes to mind was a chyron blurb from a regular CNN broadcast. It read something like, ‘Obaba Affected by Absentee Father.’ Again, no shit. Since when does being abandoned by a parent not change the core of who one is? I realize that these types of news pieces are geared at emotion but the common-sense headlines are insulting for anyone who has more than a 3rd grade education.