I just read the perfect news
story. It isn’t about Iraq, al Qaeda or Jayson Blair, but it
tells its story clearly, dramatically and at just the right length
for the amount of news in it. How many articles have you read
lately that meet that standard?
The Sun is the archetypal British tabloid: unabashedly
biased, sensational and politically incorrect — the antithesis of
the responsible, punctilious journalism embodied in distinguished
broadsheets on both side of the Atlantic. You know, like the
New York Times. But as anyone knows who’s ever read them,
the tabs are not only more fun, they’re often better written. This
story from yesterday’s edition is a fine example.
Let’s start with the headline: “Claudia & tot flee smash.”
Five words, counting the baroquely lovely ampersand, and all but
one a single evocative syllable. No need to explain which
“Claudia,” so why bother with a last name? The sentence sings as it
calls up the essential images.
NPR listeners will object that supermodels in traffic accidents
aren’t “relevant”; and Vanity Fair readers will scoff that
Ms. Schiffer is yesterday’s celebrity. But if anyone wants to deny
that here is a small but solid nugget of news, let him swear on the
Columbia Journalism Review that he wouldn’t listen if he
heard it on the bus or at a cocktail party.
The lede (as media insiders refer to the start of a “piece”) is
admirably straightforward: “SUPERMODEL Claudia Schiffer and her
baby escaped unharmed in a road smash yesterday.” No attempt to
suggest that anyone was hurt, even psychologically. Whoever wrote
this understood that you don’t trick the reader if you want him to
read you again.
The economy of language can be sublime. In the next sentence,
the protagonist is called simply “the beauty,” which is beautifully
simple and true. Ms. Schiffer is no doubt a complex person with all
sorts of dimensions, but the reason she matters to us is her
looks.
Next come some crucial details: the baby’s age (an alarmingly
vulnerable three months) and the make and value of the car. A
$97,000 Range Rover is reassuringly glamorous, though it would have
been newsworthier had the lady been getting a lift in somebody’s
Ford.
There follows a concise description of the accident and its
aftermath, in which the anonymous writer’s judgment briefly fails
him. Even speaking metaphorically, it’s just not plausible that Ms.
Schiffer “leapt” from the damaged vehicle, then “jumped” into a
taxi, especially since she was holding her infant at the time. So
let’s call this an almost perfect story.
In a nicely democratic touch (the Sun being a paper of
the common man), we also get the name and approximate age of the
non-celebrity in the other vehicle.
All this in 127 words, not counting photo captions. Some
passerby with a point-and-shoot no doubt got a fat check from
Rupert Murdoch for these snaps, including one that shows Ms.
Schiffer looking awfully good for somebody who just “leapt” from a
car crash. I guess supermodels are always ready to have somebody
take their picture.
Tacked on at the end of this restrained coverage, readers get
their dessert: 41 words of delicious tabloid hyperbole, in which
the sexy star of a trashy TV show “cheats death” after crashing
into a tractor-trailer “juggernaut.” Just in case you thought you
were reading The Economist.
