If only it was a guilty pleasure, then I'd be enjoying it...

Honestly, I swear to God, I do not make a point of waiting for my Stoney Creek News to be delivered on Thursday mornings so I can flip through it to find something to lacerate. I don't. It just seems to work out that way lately.

This week's front-page, lead story had me staring wide-eyed from the start...and I hadn't even read the article yet.

By the time I had, I was shaking my head at the discrepancy between its thrust -Larry DiIanni's highly-anticipated return to mayoral politics- and the headline itself, which reads 'Eisenberger still favourite for mayor: professor'

This lead-off to the Stoney Creek publication's current issue is insulting on two levels. The first I've just mentioned: the bulk of the article is about DiIanni, not about the wherefores of Mayor Fred Eisenberger's re-election aspirations being as strong as this McMaster prof, Mark Sproule-Jones believes them to be. Never mind that he provides almost almost a paragraph of purely subjective supporting evidence as to why he believes this to be the case. (Including the gems "He has kept the ship afloat. There have been no major gaffes." Wow. Talk about damning with faint praise.) The fact is that the headline is almost a non sequitur.

The second is the greater of the sins. It's July. There's just under three months until Voting Day. Not all incumbents have declared one way or the other, and some wards don't have a challengers to the incumbent. In other words, it's early days. And yet, despite the fact that nothing substantive has been declared on the part of any of the two 'leading' candidates, we've got front-page headline that brings into play the musings of a local prof, as if the heavens have opened and we're being handed this news-flash from on-high.

Is that what the voters of Stoney Creek warrant?

Though the article itself has its merits, the lead-headline...often what sums up the impact of the newspaper...is lame.

Think of it this way: How would you feel about a sports announcer who, at the beginning of the championship game, mere seconds into play, declares as to how 'the reigning champ is still the favourite, or so my resident expert tells me...'? Wouldn't you feel insulted that the broadcast thinks so little of your ability to discern what's going on that this guy would state something so baldly...well, fatuous?

Never mind the fact that in sports, the two teams (along with the refs contributing their part, of course) battle it out, with only their efforts deciding the outcome, not the fans'. Whereas in politics, it all comes down to how the voters feel come Election Day; in the end, it's out of the participants' hands entirely.

Even so, my bottom-line question is: 'Why this headline now?'

What purpose does it serve? (Especially as it's wholly misleading in regards to the actual thrust of the Keven Werner-written piece.)

Honestly, this is flabby journalism at its worst. I can only hope that as the campaign heats up, that we're going to see more skillfully considered material presented to us in a much more professional way by our community newspaper.

But maybe that's just me displaying flabby optimism.

Oh, well; next Thursday morning is less than a week away now. May as well break out the whetstone for my favourite lacerating device.