I stopped off this morning at the convenience store to grab a cinnamon roll for breakfast, as I often do if I forgot or did not have the time for a bowl of cereal. As I walked up to the counter with my purchases, I picked up a copy of the newspaper. On the cover, there are two main stories today, one about the recent shuffle of metro school principals (more than 68 have new assignments) and another about the new Volkswagen plant that will be built near Chattanooga. Both are great local-angle stories; information that is pertinent to the paper's readers and has far reaching effects.
I will forgive The Tennessean for using the groan-worthy headline "Fahrvergnügen, ya'll" for a story about a $1 billion auto plant to be built in the state. For one, without providing a translation it could mean anything from telling the populous to go commit a lewd yet impossible act or to "go grill bratwurst" (Samantha tells me means "driving enjoyment" and was used in an ad campaign in the early 1990s).
I laid the paper on the counter and remarked "That's pretty big news," referring to the VW plant story. He spins the paper around to get a better look at it and looks up and says "Yep, they really needed to get him signed." It took me a moment what he was talking about until I saw Albert Haynesworth, a tackle for the Tennessee Titans in the upper left-hand corner. His agent and the Titans had failed to reach a long-term deal. I made small talk about that story as my debit card processed, but I kept thinking "that is the last story I would have considered 'big news'."
I drove on to work and laid the paper on counter behind my desk. I noticed that the paper's Web site did not have the same headline (likely a wise choice by another copy editor who also groaned at the work of the evening shift). After a bit of catching up on e-mail, I brought up the subject again with another co-worker about the new auto plant. We spoke about the economic impact, the quality of the vehicles and the likely effect on the region's tourism. A third colleague came over to see what we were talking about.
After one glance at the paper, he said "I hadn't heard that about ol' Albert Haynesworth."