Or should I say, “It’s the trend, stupid”? Or, “it’s the news, stupid”?

My husband pores over newspaper front pages the way I pore over blogs everyday, and he mentioned that today was the second time he’d seen a headline with a statement, stupid. One of them is from the L.A. Daily News, which I suppose isn’t such a surprise, since they can be kind of cheeky. (See “Mystery blob eating downtown”) But the more conservative, staid San Jose Mercury News? Granted, they didn’t shout it the way the Daily News kind of did, but…shoot. I thought we were trying to get people to read newspapers, not tell them they’re stupid. I snagged the images of the pages off News Page Designer and Newseum, but the Merc’s Monday page won’t be archived, so click here to check out the full page.

Daily News A1 designer Brian Harr posted this comment about the page in his NewsPageDesigner portfolio:

my editor has been trying to have me go with “It’s the economy, stupid” for more than a week, and I have resisted. when he suggested this one, i fought him, but i quickly became outnumbered. i’m still not crazy about calling all of our readers stupid …

Really, I’m not sure what all this is about. Is this simply a case of inspiration (the DN’s page was from last Thursday) or are journalists’ prejudices showing? Hmm…

Graphic by my talented husband