Falling Back

Surveying a handful of American newspapers last Sunday, I had fun doing a close comparative reading of how they handled the end of daylight saving time. I guess it's a sad-but-true fact of the mechanics of newspaper journalism that perhaps the most crucial (in terms of having direct effects on the immediate lives of their readers) information that will grace the front page all year is a little graphic of a clock with its hour hand in a motion-blur, springing foreward or falling back.

LA Times: Fall Back Did you remember to change your clocks? Daylight saving time ended at 2 a.m.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Time has changed Did you remember to set your clocks back at 2 a.m. today, or when you went to bed last night? Hope so.

Boston Globe: Turn clocks back Daylight saving time ended at 2 a.m. today. Set your clocks back one hour.

Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger: Fall back Did you remember to set your clock back one hour and change batteries in smoke detectors?

New York Times: A Reminder Standard time resumed at 2 a.m. today. Clocks were set back one hour.

I love the nuances of tone and paper-reader relationship implied in the slightly different phrases. Is the paper offering a patient, reminding, question-marked question; sneaking in an added public-safety tip (darn it! we will be usefuller than the competition!); offering a stern no-fuss order (Boston); or, befitting the paper of record, recording the event for posterity, with none of that messy directly-addressing-the-reader stuff. "Clocks were set back": Pure objective passivity, or so they want us to think.