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I have a huge dose of chyrons and a great ouroboros

[ by Charles Cameron — chyrons as news haiku, and various news and docu screengrabs ]
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I’ve described chyrons — those verbal banners in the bottom third or fifth of a TV news screen — as the newsperson’s haiku. Headlines have long served a similar purpose, with their writers, seldom the authors credited with the articles in question, preferring puns to emphasis — puns, the “lowest form of wit” as they are sometimes mistakenly termed, James Joyce qv.

Chyrons, now — shorter than most headlines, and therefore tighter in their demands — are an art-form that sometimes calls forth subtlety and wit. I love them, not least because they’re visual verbals.. combining the eye-catching quality of the visual with the point-making clarity of the verbal — a double hit.

Here, then, from today’s haul of yesterday’s chyrons:

That’s the killer — a major war. Here are two more for context:

And let’s not forget ISIS:

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Here’s a sporting metaphor — I suppose I should say, both literal and figurative?

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Two versions of Roger Stone‘s fight:

And Dems fighting words, with flying without a pilot as a bonus:

CNN for a change, and the tax returns — so many, many fights!

Back to MSNBC:

Comic strip!

And an MRI instance, medicin aat its most inquisitive:

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Okay, a screengrab from the documentary on the Oslo and Otoya terrorist actions by Anders Breivik, 22 JulyBreivik as network cog and Knight Templar:

Oh hell, let’s close with two grabs from another docu, Evil Genius, first episode, the first grab noting the way a scavenger hunt was part of the bank-heist murder:

And the second demonstrating the route the scavenger hunt was designed to take, marked on the map in red — note the arrow at the end of the trail landing up where it had started — a clear and fascinating image of ouroboros:

Too good to miss! And that’s it for now..

5 Responses to “I have a huge dose of chyrons and a great ouroboros”

  1. Charles Cameron Says:

    Headlines have long served a similar purpose, with their writers, seldom the authors credited with the articles in question, preferring puns to emphasis — puns, the “lowest form of wit” as they are sometimes mistakenly termed, James Joyce qv..
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    Well, I mean:

    The Story Behind the Instant Classic “Bezos Exposes Pecker” Headline
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    In the tabloid tradition, a good headline must do three things: it must communicate the news; it must commit some act of wordplay; and it must trigger a certain popping of the eyes in its reader, ideally accompanied by some kind of involuntary subverbal response—a squawk, a snort, a guffaw, a gasp.

    Yup.

    Yup.

    And altogether liminal, the way the pun arrived:

    She was on the subway, heading home, her phone running out of battery and her reception going in and out between stations, when one of HuffPost’s employee Slack channels broke out in a headline brainstorm. “Basically, whenever there’s an opportunity for something super punny like that, our whole newsroom is on Slack throwing out puns,” Miller explained on Friday.

    Yup, I suppose.

    Both Miller and Snyder shrugged off the fact that the New York Post—a tabloid famous for its headlines—ran “Bezos Exposes Pecker” as the headline on its Friday front page. They were willing to accept that great minds had arrived at the same idea simultaneously, like Newton and Leibniz. “I think anyone in that business is brainstorming headlines with the word ‘Pecker,’ ” Snyder said.

  2. Charles Cameron Says:

    Parallelism:
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  3. Charles Cameron Says:

    What happens when billionaires battle gossipmongers?
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    When a Yearbook Is a Current Event
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    Metaphor!

  4. Charles Cameron Says:


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    Ouroboros!
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    Source: The Self-Conflict Zone

  5. Charles Cameron Says:


    ..
    Source: Bernie Sanders Is Ready to Rumble
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    Rumble!


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