'Tis the season for jolly old journalism...

I occasionally have a look at The Advertiser's online manifestation called Adelaide Now. I don't usually get my news from this site but sometimes I find myself needing to catch up on what's going down in Adelaide town (really?...did I just rhyme?..sorry). The Advertiser is a News Limited publication and a scour of its pages (paper or electronic) often ends in disappointment...go figure.

Today I was scanning the headlines and saw this:


Christmas themed headlines are cringe-worthy at the best of times, and I wasn't at all surprised to see this on a Murdoch website. The thing is that the article is actually from Australian Associated Press and doesn't feature the terrible pun.

For a wonderful blog entry on tacky Christmas no-nos in journalism, see this article by newspaper editor John McIntyre.
McIntyre ends the piece with this:

Some readers (and, sadly, some writers) lap up this swill. It is familiar, and the complete lack of originality comforts them. It is for such people that television exists.

After a quick search I found two other terrible tinsel-decorated headlines from Australian publications:

"It's not ho-ho-hopeless" by Jemis Anning for the Illawarra Mercury

...and...

"Xmas Day should be a holiday: unions" by Andrea Hayward for the Sydney Morning Herald


Ho-ho-hoes