Free national bestsellers for your eReader - Fiction, Nonfiction & more! Join 1.5 million book lovers now. Sign-up in under 10 seconds to get the free daily email.
The West View News is a monthly publication in New York City's West Village with a circulation of approximately 20,000 subscribers.
But one article in its latest edition has now been viewed by far more people than that, thanks to one of the most controversial headlines you're ever likely to see in print.
The op-ed by author James Lincoln Collier is titled "N----r in the White House."
The piece is actually a pro-Barack Obama article that criticizes the "racism" of far-right voters.
But most readers believe the newspaper is the one being racist by running such an attention-grabbing headline.
"It's disrespectful in any context to refer to the president of the United States as the N Word," one West Village resident told The New York Post, adding: "If you were quoting something or referring to the historic context of the word being used, I can understand the justification."
Editor/Publisher George Capsis says the author convinced him to use the slur specifically because The New York Times avoids doing so, while admitting it's included to "shock" folks "into accepting that there are people who believe and use this outrageous word."
Below the article ran another op-ed, penned by an African-American columnist and titled, "The Headline Offends Me."
"The decision to use the headline feels misguided to me," Alvin Hall writes in it. "I don't see how its use benefits anyone, but I do feel all too clearly how it deeply offends me."
So, to recap, a newspaper created its own news by running a controversial headline and then immediately responding to the controversy itself.
Who needs actual world events when a publication can just stir things up from its very own offices?
What do you think of a newspaper running such a headline?
{ 0 komentar... read them below or add one }
Posting Komentar