Striking Distance
I really loathe the SF Chronicle. It's the forced sense of cheery camraderie they add to every story. In some way, I suppose it's meant to make you think of the reporter as your next door neighbor, dressed in a bathrobe, leaning on your fence, cup of coffee in hand, pointing across the street at your suspicious neighbors and listing the juicy gossip of the morning.
Case in point: The SF Chronicle is running a story about Marcus Wesson, the polygamist and suspected mass-murderer, wherein they refer to him as a "man with [a] striking personality." He may have murdered nine people, all family members, and the SF Chronicle thinks the most important thing we need to know about him is that he had a striking personality?
Imagine the SFC tackling "dynamic and enthusiastic overachiever" Jeffrey Dahmer or "charming former painter" Adolph Hitler. Brrrr.
Give me my inverse-pyramid journalism any day of the week; just tell me who, what, where, when, why, and how. Leave the humanization bits for the biographers.
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