Morris Dancing
Jan. 6th, 2009 06:08 pmI now present a step-by-step guide to turning "society isn't static" into a news report.
1. Report that participation in X is declining.
2. Mention that X experienced resurgences in 18XX, 19XX, 19YY, etc.[1] but young people think what old people do is silly.
3. Make tongue-in-cheek generalisations about the character of various nationalities.
4. Say that the name "supposedly" derives from blah blah blah plausible-sounding etymology[2]
5. Have a companion opinion article that wants to say "some change is inevitable" but instead provocatively phrases that as "good riddance".
6. Say X could be dead in [horizon of future] years.
It's not a bad article, it's just the same one that's written whenever any change happens. You can predict it all from the first line.
[1] To be honest I was pleasantly surprised with that level of research :)
[2] I was astounded by that level of disclaimer. Maybe we were too quick to postulate the death of print journalism, or maybe people griping about linguistic reporting had some effect!
1. Report that participation in X is declining.
2. Mention that X experienced resurgences in 18XX, 19XX, 19YY, etc.[1] but young people think what old people do is silly.
3. Make tongue-in-cheek generalisations about the character of various nationalities.
4. Say that the name "supposedly" derives from blah blah blah plausible-sounding etymology[2]
5. Have a companion opinion article that wants to say "some change is inevitable" but instead provocatively phrases that as "good riddance".
6. Say X could be dead in [horizon of future] years.
It's not a bad article, it's just the same one that's written whenever any change happens. You can predict it all from the first line.
[1] To be honest I was pleasantly surprised with that level of research :)
[2] I was astounded by that level of disclaimer. Maybe we were too quick to postulate the death of print journalism, or maybe people griping about linguistic reporting had some effect!