SWA #9

In order to answer the posed question I have to identify the main goal of my job as the editor of the New York Times. I assume my biggest job is to choose the front page story which will sell the most newspapers. Answering this question requires being able to identify which of the stories is the most interesting to Americans. The first story to bite the dust (so to speak) is the story about the Loch Ness monster. Americans as a whole are more interested in domestic issues than foreign ones. Americans are as a majority more interested in domestic issues because these are the issues which affect them directly. The Loch Ness monster was captured in Scotland and therefore is definitely below the story about the Sasquatch. So now the choice is between Sasquatch and the cancerous president. Each story brings to the surface a different feeling when a person reads the headline. The Sasquatch story makes a person feel intense curiosity about the evolutionary history of man. The curiosity is so intense because Sasquatch is supposedly a missing link in the evolutionary history of humans and humans are a race who tends to be self-important. By president I assume Klosterman means the current president at the time the question is asked; in this case this president would be George W. Bush. Bush is one of the most disliked presidents in American history. When people read about this president having cancer some may feel sorrow but I believe more people would feel a sense of righteous justice which justifies their anger. My choice of headline stories comes down to the following; does curiosity or hatred sells better? The answer to this question lies in my judgment of the character of the American people. Do I believe people are optimistic and would prefer to read about a stimulating intellectual curiosity? Or do I believe more papers would sell if the hated president had cancer. I believe hatred is a more emotionally satisfying response so I would put the cancerous president on the front page.