Written Pyramids

In the Daily News, the caption read, '"save the life of my child," cried the desperate mother."



In the vein of newspaper mentions in other mediums, the Simon and Garfunkel song "Save The Life of My Child" always sends chills down my spine. I love Simon and Garfunkel as much for their lyrics as for their music. Probably more for their lyrics than music, because I am a words person, and because these lyrics are frightening.

Though the song is somber, I am always tickled by the NY Daily News/ NY Times contrast that I started the post with. Generally, it's probably an accurate assessment of the papers. The Daily News is a New York paper that thrives on police stories, and the New York Times is a national paper that reports police stories. (I hope that difference makes sense. It's one I picked up on as a reader of the papers not as a journalist). I'm a politics junky and prefer broadsheet to tabloid, but sometimes, the Daily News gets it right.

Which is why I was befuddled when someone at the Mayor's press office told me that when they do press clippings, they clip everything from all the New York newspapers that has to do with City Hall, even if it repeats in more than one paper. But, when it comes to police stories, they use the NYTimes whenever possible. Usually each of the papers that report on a police story have different amounts of detail and color. But if I had to chose, I think I'd clip the Daily News.

The sound clip above is from here.