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Trib cans Get Fuzzy on Dec. 1

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Merlin Haas

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Dec 1, 2007, 7:52:15 PM12/1/07
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Chicago Tribune decided to sub an old strip for Get Fuzzy on Dec. 1.
"Not up to our standards of taste," sez the Trib. The strip for Nov. 30
didn't pass muster, either.

Anybody else's paper decide not to print these strips?

--
best -- Merlin Haas

Mike Beede

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Dec 2, 2007, 8:54:44 AM12/2/07
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In article <mvhaas-5C4B7E....@r03.iad01.newshosting.com>,
Merlin Haas <mvh...@elpaso.net> wrote:

The Minneapolis paper had the first one, which was more explicit.
I suspect they had the second too.

Mike Beede

racs...@gmail.com

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Dec 2, 2007, 9:19:48 AM12/2/07
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On Dec 2, 8:54 am, Mike Beede <be...@visi.com> wrote:
> In article <mvhaas-5C4B7E.18521501122...@r03.iad01.newshosting.com>,

The general rule at most papers is that profanity in a quote can be
used or implied (first letter and spaces) if it is essential to convey
what is going on -- usually the intensity of someone's feeling.

Example One: The team has won the game but lost a shut-out on a long
touchdown pass which the reporters ask about. The coach casually
responds, "Yeah, Jones should have had him, but he's been playing with
the flu and has felt shitty all week. I think he did well in the game,
all things considered."

Reporters would probably write that the coach said Jones had been
playing with the flu and then quote "I think he did well in the game,
all things considered."

Example Two: Two kickoffs are returned for touchdowns and the team
loses a game it should have won. The coach is furious at the post-game
session and snaps, "What cost us the game? What cost us the game? The
shitty play of our special teams! That's what cost us the game!" Then
he stomps out of the room.

That one you quote, and you're gutless if you don't.

In my book, "shitty" as a kind of toss-away punchline in a comic strip
isn't going to make the page. It doesn't accomplish enough to make up
for the number of people who would be offended.

Mike Peterson
http://nellieblogs.blogspot.com

Mike Beede

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Dec 2, 2007, 10:41:47 AM12/2/07
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In article
<7f044ccb-f87d-47f0...@w34g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
"pete...@SPAMnelliebly.org" <racs...@gmail.com> wrote:

> In my book, "shitty" as a kind of toss-away punchline in a comic strip
> isn't going to make the page. It doesn't accomplish enough to make up
> for the number of people who would be offended.

The interesting part is that it wasn't in the strip--you had to
put it together in your head. That makes it a little less
clear cut. I assume that in many cases the editors didn't even
notice it.

Mike Beede

racs...@gmail.com

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Dec 2, 2007, 2:44:33 PM12/2/07
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On Dec 2, 10:41 am, Mike Beede <be...@visi.com> wrote:
> In article
> <7f044ccb-f87d-47f0-8f51-f6d8600a2...@w34g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,

>
> "peter...@SPAMnelliebly.org" <racss...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > In my book, "shitty" as a kind of toss-away punchline in a comic strip
> > isn't going to make the page. It doesn't accomplish enough to make up
> > for the number of people who would be offended.
>
> The interesting part is that it wasn't in the strip--you had to
> put it together in your head. That makes it a little less
> clear cut. I assume that in many cases the editors didn't even
> notice it.

Absolutely -- but one of the reasons strips are in such peril as a
medium is that editors ignore them. I like the idea that an editor
read it closely enough to say, "Uh, no, I don't think so."

Though it was probably someone on the copy desk or maybe back in
production. Not anyone who makes decisions about acquisition.

Mike Peterson
http://nellieblogs.blogspot.com

Charlie Foxtrot

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Dec 3, 2007, 1:14:13 AM12/3/07
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On Sun, 2 Dec 2007 06:19:48 -0800 (PST), "pete...@SPAMnelliebly.org"
<racs...@gmail.com> wrote:


>In my book, "shitty" as a kind of toss-away punchline in a comic strip
>isn't going to make the page. It doesn't accomplish enough to make up
>for the number of people who would be offended.

What's offensive, to me, is that anyone in the 21'st century would
take the time to be offended by words. Especially words that aren't
on the page.

Foxtrot
If you think you hate me from what I write here, check out my blog on my MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/bennettron

If you actually think I'm an okay guy, go ahead and add me as your friend if you are active at MySpace.

Jim Ellwanger

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Dec 3, 2007, 4:58:41 PM12/3/07
to
In article
<7f044ccb-f87d-47f0...@w34g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
"pete...@SPAMnelliebly.org" <racs...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Example Two: Two kickoffs are returned for touchdowns and the team
> loses a game it should have won. The coach is furious at the post-game
> session and snaps, "What cost us the game? What cost us the game? The
> shitty play of our special teams! That's what cost us the game!" Then
> he stomps out of the room.
>
> That one you quote, and you're gutless if you don't.

I have no doubt that it would be rendered in the Los Angeles Times
sports section as "What cost us the game? What cost us the game? The
[horrible] play of our special teams! That's what cost us the game!"
(This is a sports section that once ran an entire article about Dodger
Stadium fans chanting "Barry sucks" at Barry Bonds without actually
using the word "sucks"; they printed the quote as "Barry [bleeps].")

But over in the Calendar section, they did run both the November 30 and
December 1 "Get Fuzzy" strips intact.

--
Jim Ellwanger <use...@ellwanger.tv>
<http://www.ellwanger.tv> welcomes you daily.
"The days turn into nights; at night, you hear the trains."

racs...@gmail.com

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Dec 3, 2007, 7:29:03 PM12/3/07
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On Dec 3, 4:58 pm, Jim Ellwanger <use...@ellwanger.tv> wrote:
> In article
> <7f044ccb-f87d-47f0-8f51-f6d8600a2...@w34g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
>
> "peter...@SPAMnelliebly.org" <racss...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Example Two: Two kickoffs are returned for touchdowns and the team
> > loses a game it should have won. The coach is furious at the post-game
> > session and snaps, "What cost us the game? What cost us the game? The
> > shitty play of our special teams! That's what cost us the game!" Then
> > he stomps out of the room.
>
> > That one you quote, and you're gutless if you don't.
>
> I have no doubt that it would be rendered in the Los Angeles Times
> sports section as "What cost us the game? What cost us the game? The
> [horrible] play of our special teams! That's what cost us the game!"
> (This is a sports section that once ran an entire article about Dodger
> Stadium fans chanting "Barry sucks" at Barry Bonds without actually
> using the word "sucks"; they printed the quote as "Barry [bleeps].")

True story: Back in the late 70s, I did a story for the Sunday
editorial section of the Denver Post, a look at the difference between
recruiting at a small, Division II engineering school (Colorado School
of Mines) and a major Big Eight team (University of Colorado). It was
just going to be a kind of thoughtful feature, until I interviewed the
athletic director at CU.

I asked him an innocent opener: "Have you ever lost a blue-chip
recruit to someone who offered him something under the table?" from
which we'd talk about the pressure, the rules, etc. Imagine my
surprise when he said, "No. That's just something the media makes up
to sell papers. In 30 years of college football, I've never known a
case of a player getting something he wasn't entitled to under the
rules."

I was so flabbergasted I could barely complete the interview, such as
it was. I went back to the editor and said, "Now what? The guy flat-
out lied to me!"

"Well, you can't say that," she said. "But, obviously, he did."

So I called the athletic directors or ass't ADs at the University of
Alabama, Notre Dame and Southern Cal, and asked them each the same
question. They each responded, "Yeah ... " as if to say, "... so
what's your question?" When I explained why I was asking, one of them
gave me the money quote: He burst into laughter and said. "Boy, is he
bullshitting you!"

We used the quote, which solved the problem .. I didn't call the guy a
liar, but someone else, in a position to know, did. That wasn't the
center of the story, which talked a lot more about recruiting good
players to a school where they have to take engineering courses and,
for its CU portion, relied on the other people I interviewed there who
hadn't lied in my face.

But later, through the grapevine, I heard that the Post's sports
department was furious because they weren't allowed to use the word
"bullshit" in their section, and I got to.

I was also banned from the CU athletic department, but, since I wasn't
a sportwriter, it really didn't matter to me.

Turned out the reason he was sensitive on the topic was that CU was
under investigation by the NCAA for recruiting violations. They ended
up on probation, he ended up losing his job. I only wish I could take
some part of the credit for it.

But at least I got to write the word "bullshit" in the newspaper.

Mike Peterson
http://nellieblogs.blogspot.com

Mike Beede

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Dec 3, 2007, 10:59:22 PM12/3/07
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In article
<68e1651d-536d-4c5d...@p69g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>,
"pete...@SPAMnelliebly.org" <racs...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I was also banned from the CU athletic department, but, since I wasn't
> a sportwriter, it really didn't matter to me.

I imagine you keep kind of a "trophy wall of the mind" where you put
things like that. I certainly would if I were a newpaper man. (By
the way, I still don't know if it's "were" or "would", so there's
no danger of that happening).

It's not quite being banned from the White House, but it's got to be
nice to look back on anyway.

And now you got to use that word on USENET, too (without just
gratuitously bunging it in the way us (we?) lowlifes do).

Mike Beede

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