Spoiler Alert: It Was A Raccoon

Posted on October 23rd, 2008 10:05am by Adam McGill
Filed under Media

Perhaps you were in your office’s communal kitchen getting a second or third cup of coffee this morning when you saw the office’s communal copy of the Dallas Morning News. You take a gander at the frontpage and see what’s worth reading. There, at the bottom, is a story from Oak Cliff tagged Home Invasion. The headline: “Intruder wasn’t a cat burglar, but culprit did wear a mask.” Enticing. Criminals do the darnedest things. You read the lede. Writer Steve Thompson does some nice work, drawing you in. Nice touch there, including the bit about the 85-year-old home invasionee “using the tip of his cane to switch on a light and show the destruction.” You get to the jump and follow it.

Then, a full 10 paragraphs in, you finally discover who—or what—the culprit was: a raccoon. The online version gives it away with the headline: “Raccoon ‘burglar’ evades Dallas police, wreaks havoc in Kessler Park home.” But print readers may feel, I don’t know, duped. And then maybe confused about why such a story was frontpage-worthy. And then you’re resigned to the fact that the story did what it was supposed to do. The ol’ editorial misdirection/bait ‘n switch. You fell for it. Well-played, DMN editors. Well-played.

9 comments

  1. Channel 4 did the same thing this morning, something to the effect of “85-year-old has his house broken into, and you won’t imagine who was responsible. Join us after the break!”

    So I went to the DMN website and found my answer just like you.

    @ 10:26 am on October 23, 2008

  2. Heard the same tease on 99.5 the Wolf this morning – Guess they’re loving a light-hearted home invasion in Oak Cliff.

    @ 11:21 am on October 23, 2008

  3. HOME BURGLARIES ARE ON THE RISE AND SO ARE RABIES. FIND OUT WHO’S TO BLAME AND WHY IT MIGHT KILL YOU!….tonight at 10.

    @ 12:27 pm on October 23, 2008

  4. And so are bad grammar.

    @ 1:24 pm on October 23, 2008

  5. Raccoon…yummmmmm

    @ 1:26 pm on October 23, 2008

  6. Aw, Buck. Brett was just channeling Jane McGarry. Have you read her blog?

    @ 1:27 pm on October 23, 2008

  7. What’s raccoon for `Dude don’t tase me.’ Seriously, what’s the point of using a taser on wildlife?

    @ 1:37 pm on October 23, 2008

  8. Seriously, it’s better than splattering raccoon colon all over one’s kitchen, and also better than a rabid raccoon biting one of Dallas’ finest. So I thought it was a valid response.

    But what scares me, is that the taser didn’t affect the raccoon! Was he hopped up on PCP or something?

    @ 5:23 pm on October 23, 2008

  9. Yes, but was the raccoon dapper?

    @ 7:42 am on October 26, 2008