Jokester writing headlines at the Charlotte Observer?

Here's a case when the headline doesn't match the subject matter... thanks to somebody inside the Observer with a sense of humor.

The Charlotte Observer published Steven Harrison's piece about a streetcar project in Charlotte that didn't touch on well-known problems with the system, and Jeff Taylor noticed something funny in the headline.

Check out this little piece of humor via some unknown gnome at the Uptown paper of record. Steve Harrison pens a love poem to the $500m. streetcar — omitting previous observations that the line would not, could not relieve congestion and reduce travel times — and someone slaps the headline Savvy Citizen Transportation on it.

That formulation, you might recall, is a call-back to the hysterical Uptown editorial calling on the city council to spend $4.5m. on a study for a streetcar no one knows how the city can afford. This is “savvy” policy according to the paper.

Proof that this was a little jab comes in the fact that the piece went to print with the much more respectable hed of Streetcar project has tricky route and that it is this version which is now up on the site.

Below is a screen grab of the "Savvy" headline.


Of course, it could depend on what the definition of "savvy" is.

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