this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2026
36 points (100.0% liked)

Chat

8544 readers
18 users here now

Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.


Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

No less than Stephen Pinker claiming this is news?

This happened with a fresh-out-of-college designer (god forbid copyeditors had editing skills) in 2015. In Austin. I was there that night.

I was on a different team, but come morning, yeah, we were all mocking her for her lack of a hyphen. At the same time, I was the only designer exempt from running a site's heds verbatim. Of course something like this was going to happen.

To claim this recently happened with a nonsensical upside-down folio is ... I usually reach for "absurd" here, and as I've already burned "nonsensical," I'll just go with "unhinged."

Pinker knows better, and I'm slightly inclined to point out the provenance that claims a local paper we neither owned nor designed (already an ethical violation) was responsible for what I saw happen in real time in Austin.

God, I hated those stylesheets, but they're rather damning when it comes to proving A) this was designed at the hub; and B) you're claiming local reporting -- complete with byline -- you didn't do.

Anyone still confused about why I walked away?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] rozwud@beehaw.org 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Hah, I remember someone posting this on Facebook back in the day. I thought it was hilarious that the article started with "Eager students"... I bet they were!

[โ€“] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 1 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

It's worth noting that she was ... not exactly a prude, but unaware of entendre. She was just dutifully flowing in the hed from the CMS and had never learned to question display copy, which was exactly what GateHouse was hiring for.

The first time I questioned a hed for a paper I'd not worked at in the past, the assigning ed went to management and said that I had no right to alter their display copy after I'd run it up the flagpole, and management (please sit down here) defended me. It was explained that my hed would run, and in the future, don't fuck up like this again and drag us into this shit.