7 ms·

I think it's just the vagueness of the headline. "Our Area" could be any area, so everyone who saw it wanted pass it along because they thought it applied to th

by imgabe 8y ago

I think it's just the vagueness of the headline. "Our Area" could be any area, so everyone who saw it wanted pass it along because they thought it applied to them.

dmckeon 8y ago
Newspaper stories used to have a “dateline” which gave the place-of-origin and the date the story was written, usually followed by the writer’s name. The AP style guide had detailed rules, abbreviations, and even disambiguation - which Portland, which Springfield? Nowadays, TV and newspaper web sites frequently make no mention of the date of a story, and the location is rarely given. Worse, the geographic area served by the medium is often maddeningly vague, with general hints like serving “the five valley area”, or “the gateway to the Snake Navel river,” or “the tri-county rural-plex”. Those are nice for the local readers and the advertisers/chamber of commerce, but for the random remote internet reader they convey almost no useful location information. Please, old-media web-site admins, put your medium’s location somewhere close to the top of your home page. A state or province, a town, or even an area-code. Also, get off my lawn.
- imgabe 8y ago
  It looks like the original headline was “Texas Rangers Search Here for Human Trafficking Suspect” which would have at least suggested that it was taking place somewhere in Texas. The radio news reporter that reposted it just changed it to “Suspected Human Trafficker, Child Predator May Be in Our Area."
- ComputerGuru 8y ago
  > Newspaper stories used to have a “dateline” which gave the place-of-origin and the date the story was written, usually followed by the writer’s name. Actually, the dateline is far more important than that. I didn't always know this, but the dateline is actually a contract telling you where the reporter was in person, and is the difference between the "hard" journalism of yesteryear and the "soft" web journalism of today. Read this investigation [0] by the NY Times into the story of Jayson Blair, whom they fired after discovering he was faking sources for his articles. It talks a lot about journalistic integrity and was the first time I learned that datelines weren't just where the article happened but also the journalist giving you their word that they were there, on the ground. Once you learn this, you start to see it everywhere. For instance, a recent article about the deep freeze we had here in Chicago (we hit around minus 50 degrees F with windchill for a couple of days) talked almost exclusively about Chicago, a little bit about the Midwest in general, and a single sentence towards the end about Michigan. The byline? Detroit, MI. Now you know why! [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/national/times-reporter-who-resigned-leaves-long-trail-of-deception.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/national/times-reporter-w...
  - contras1970 8y ago
    > around minus 50 degrees F == around -45.56C (https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=-50+F+in+C https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=-50+F+in+C)

by imgabe 8y ago

I think it's just the vagueness of the headline. "Our Area" could be any area, so everyone who saw it wanted pass it along because they thought it applied to them.

dmckeon 8y ago

Newspaper stories used to have a “dateline” which gave the place-of-origin and the date the story was written, usually followed by the writer’s name. The AP style guide had detailed rules, abbreviations, and even disambiguation - which Portland, which Springfield? Nowadays, TV and newspaper web sites frequently make no mention of the date of a story, and the location is rarely given. Worse, the geographic area served by the medium is often maddeningly vague, with general hints like serving “the five valley area”, or “the gateway to the Snake Navel river,” or “the tri-county rural-plex”. Those are nice for the local readers and the advertisers/chamber of commerce, but for the random remote internet reader they convey almost no useful location information. Please, old-media web-site admins, put your medium’s location somewhere close to the top of your home page. A state or province, a town, or even an area-code. Also, get off my lawn.

imgabe 8y ago
It looks like the original headline was “Texas Rangers Search Here for Human Trafficking Suspect” which would have at least suggested that it was taking place somewhere in Texas. The radio news reporter that reposted it just changed it to “Suspected Human Trafficker, Child Predator May Be in Our Area."
ComputerGuru 8y ago
> Newspaper stories used to have a “dateline” which gave the place-of-origin and the date the story was written, usually followed by the writer’s name. Actually, the dateline is far more important than that. I didn't always know this, but the dateline is actually a contract telling you where the reporter was in person, and is the difference between the "hard" journalism of yesteryear and the "soft" web journalism of today. Read this investigation [0] by the NY Times into the story of Jayson Blair, whom they fired after discovering he was faking sources for his articles. It talks a lot about journalistic integrity and was the first time I learned that datelines weren't just where the article happened but also the journalist giving you their word that they were there, on the ground. Once you learn this, you start to see it everywhere. For instance, a recent article about the deep freeze we had here in Chicago (we hit around minus 50 degrees F with windchill for a couple of days) talked almost exclusively about Chicago, a little bit about the Midwest in general, and a single sentence towards the end about Michigan. The byline? Detroit, MI. Now you know why! [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/national/times-reporter-who-resigned-leaves-long-trail-of-deception.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/national/times-reporter-w...
- contras1970 8y ago
  > around minus 50 degrees F == around -45.56C (https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=-50+F+in+C https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=-50+F+in+C)