ABC News has a story linked from Google News titled “3 Americans Share 2009 Nobel Medicine Prize.” The headline isn’t that bad, even if it doesn’t contain any mention of Godzilla. ABC was smart to include “Americans” in the title, so people click on the article just to find out how three Americans won anything and on top of that are able to share.
I didn’t read any of the article because, again, the title didn’t mention Godzilla, but I assume that the article is about three scientists getting money for doing something with medicine. My interpretation is that that “something” involved chugging a large quantity of grape Sudafed and then trying to lasso pigeons, but you’re free to make your own interpretation.
The problem with this ABC News article is the picture they chose to run with the story.
Wait, one of the scientists is a statue? Statues can win awards now?!? THIS IS WHAT MICHELANGELO WARNED US ABOUT.
The above picture implies that one of the winning scientists, Jack W. Szostak, is a statue that these two ladies have been resting beakers on and using to crack walnuts. I could have done both those things if I knew there was a prize involved.
Without the statue picture, the headline is adequate. But after seeing the statue picture, I think ABC could have done so much more with the headline. I’ll offer some suggestions off the top of my head:
“2 Crazy Americans Bring Statue to Award Show and Win”
“Jack W. Szostak Wins Nobel Prize While Encased in Carbonite”
“Nobel Medicine Ceremony Raises the Question: Who’s Fucking the Statue?”
“2 Americans and Statue of Unknown Origin Win Nobel Prize for ‘Most Creative Research Team.’”
“Godzilla Turns a Scientist to Stone! ‘More like the Nobel Prize for Freezing like a Pussy,’ Says Godzilla.”
This seems like a simple communication error, but there’s probably an internal power-struggle at ABC News. In the coming weeks, we’ll see more and more articles with headlines that are intentionally sabotaged by pictures. For example, “President Obama Loses the Public Option” and the first picture is an immigrant with dollar signs for eyes getting open heart surgery.
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