I may have mentioned this before, but I believe my local daily newspaper is absolute crap. Miles has a fabulous saying (it was actually something he said at his first agency job to his Creative Director, just before he was fired): "I wouldn't wipe my ass with that."
Maybe that's not something you say about a TV ad script that your boss wrote, but it's something I feel totally comfortable saying about my paper. Because I rarely get any news or insight. The "Nevada" section usually reads like a police blotter.
Except for today. Yesterday must have been pretty slow, death-wise. Going down the list on today's local page, the focus is on a nurse walkout, homeless issues, public health and updates on existing court cases. The editors must have been upset. Twitchy. Desperate, almost. They must have began to collectively sweat without the promise of a good police shooting or grisly murder-suicide. They were grasping - begging for something, anything to keep their readership up. Because really, they're the only daily paper in town - but given the choice between reading them and not reading at all, people seem to be opting for the second choice.
Then something caught the editors' beady eyes. It was Nevada-related. There was a tidy amount of death (either by vehicle or shooting) - 32 in just the last year. So they went with it:
Bears' death rate on rise around lake
Whew. Crisis averted. And hopefully, today will bring a fiery, multi-car, alcohol-related fatal crash that shuts down a major highway AND a bumfight that ends in a scuffle with police and a taser-related heart attack. If the news gods are good.
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