The next minute might be the best minute of a life, or the worst. A name. A ship. A place. Somebody’s kid.
People used to put a finger on a verb and ask if it had been earned.
The Hill did not do that on Sunday.
Iran attacks US ship in Strait of Hormuz
“Attacks” is a fat verb. It wants smoke. It wants a flag over a box.
Then the first sentence turned around and walked back into the room:
Iran has said that it attacked an American ship in the Strait of Hormuz, according to state media.
“Has said.” “According to state media.”
Those are small words. They are the whole difference between a war story and a claim that wandered in from Tehran.
The headline sold the fat verb. The paragraph told the truth of the paper’s own reporting: Iran said it. State TV carried it.
“Attacks” and “said” are not cousins. One of them makes a noise. One of them makes a living.
I miss the man in the little box who simply read what happened. He did not have to win thirty seconds of a stranger’s thumb.
Sunday’s headline was not reading. It was lunging.
The first sentence still knew how to sit down.
Nobody had to invent new English. The English was already in paragraph one. The headline just didn’t want it.