by Allan R. Andrews
American Reporter Correspondent
Washington, D.C.
WASHINGTON -- I keep telling my son, one of the shortest boys in his seventh-grade class, that powerful and influential things come in small packages. I use examples of dynamite, poison and viruses.
Unfortunately, my examples appear negative or morbid. I've recently brainstormed more positive examples: computer chips, steering mechanisms and the ancient model of big trouble, the tongue. I've yet to try those out on my rising adolescent.
Our chats often occur while I'm reading a magazine, and I'm tempted to tell him that magazines are small items with powerful impacts.
I sometimes tell him ideas begin small and grow into influential movements - in a sense, the most powerful things in the world -- but he's still looking for something concrete on which to pin a hope for bigness.
Ah, well, I conclude, genes are little, powerful - and often slow -- things. My teenage growth spurt didn't arrive until I was 16. But while I'm thinking about it, let me suggest some powerful small stuff one can find in type.
The trend in journalism has taken newspapers toward the shorter story -- or, the smaller story -- leaving lengthy expositions to supplements and magazines. Magazines, however, refusing to be limited, have devised a few shorts to be powerful features in their print arsenal.
One of the longest-running magazine "shorts" is "The Lower Case," found inside the back cover of The Columbia Journalism Review.
"The Lower Case" provides a collection of documented headlines from the nation's newspapers that contain faults or mistakes that slipped into print and had editors wishing they hadn't.
These copy editor's errors have been turned into a couple of book collections, and comedian Jay Leno has patterned a similar feature into a regular part of his comedy routine on late-night television.
A few examples of the headlines from the Nov.-Dec., 1998 issue of CJR illustrate how wonderful a feature "The Lower Case" can be: "U.S., Brits agree to bomb trial at Hague," claimed a Missouri newspaper. "Jail regulators' hands tied in efforts to prevent abuse," readers of a Texas newspaper were told.
And a state of Washington paper noted, "FBI adds to reward for killing suspects." Alongside a photograph of President Clinton with Vice-President Al Gore in the background, an Indiana newspaper ran this headline: "Authorities investigate switched baby case."
The CJR solicits such goofs from readers but insists that all submissions be only "original, unmutilated clippings suitable for reproduction."
Another of my favorite powerful little features is Harper's much-imitated "Index." Every month, the magazine fills a page with statistics concerning culture and events. In the January issue, for example, Harper's Index informs readers:
"Number of words devoted to the Depression in Houghton Mifflin's fifth-grade history book, Build Our Nation: 332 "Number devoted to the baseball career of Cal Ripken Jr.: 339." Or how about this eyebrow-raising item: "Estimated amount the Pentagon will spend this year on Viagra: $50,000,000." Or, in another realm: "Price that Manhattan's new NBA boutique charges for a Waterford crystal vase engraved with an image of Larry Bird: $8,000."
The tid-bits of information, all footnoted with sources, are presented without commentary. Readers are left to draw their own conclusions. Of course, arrangement is everything. Often, when one stat follows a similar stat, a reader is left saying, "You've got to be kidding." Unfortunately, they are not.
Brill's Content, the media watchdog magazine launched with aplomb in 1998, contains its own imitation of Harper's Index, called "Ticker." One might call it a media-focused index of interesting statistics. The Dec. 1998-Jan. 1999 issue offers these numbers for pondering:
"1:20 - Ratio of Internet users worldwide to number of people worldwide who watch the television show 'Baywatch'." "$29 million - Net income for Nielsen Media Research during the first six months of 1998." "$1 - Amount a household receives for recording what it watches in a 'Nielsen diary' for one week."
The Washington Monthly, the little journal of political opinion that goes after the movers and shakers inside the Beltway, offers a little feature called "Tidbits & Outrages." A recent example:
"According to Virginia State auditors, 1,500 dead people are registered to vote in that state."
More outrageous:
"[The] Rev. Muhamed Siddeequ, spiritual advisor to Mike Tyson, told the New Jersey State Athletic Commission in July that the fighter is of such great character that not only should he get back his boxing license but is a candidate to succeed Kofi Annan as U.N. secretary general."
A whole new way of looking at the world emerges from these small packages. We all know that Tyson got his license back. Cover your ears, Kofi! Now, if I can just convince my son to read and appreciate the tiny stuff, he may determine that small ain't so bad after all.
Allan R. Andrews can be contacted at allan.andrews@reporters.net
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