I’m getting really fucking tired of some of the sloppy journalism that’s been cropping up… well, internationally, to be fair. The most obvious manifestation of this is in the headlines. If an editor can’t even be dicked to come up with a useful headline, I can’t imagine they apply much in the way of standards to the story. Here’s one that cropped up a week ago:

Family seeks answers in daughter’s death

As opposed to what? Just being cool with it? Their high schooler is killed and the family is all “meh, whatever happens happens, right?” And this particular format gets trotted out a lot, as if we should be surprised or concerned that they want answers. 

This particular diatribe was then sparked by the followup story to the above, with this headline. 

Death investigation intensifies

Wow. “Yeah, I admit we were seriously half-assing it before, but then we sent Jones out to grab a case of Red Bull and now we are some seriously intense death investigating sons of bitches! YEAH!”

What they were meaning to say in both cases were, respectively, “Student’s death still a mystery” and “Investigation can continue after student holiday break”, which actually provides even a miniscule amount of context to the whole article. 

I’m kinda glad I didn’t end up in journalism, because I’m sure this shit would drive me nuts if I was in the center of it.