CNN.com Offers News You Can Wear
New Promotion Allows Visitors to Buy T-Shirts With Snappy Video Headlines From CNN.com
By Alex Weprin -- Broadcasting & Cable, 4/21/2008 2:01:00 AM
Apparently not content to offer news you can use, CNN is peddling news you can wear.
Call it prêt-a-reporter: Beginning Monday, visitors to CNN.com will be able to purchase T-shirts featuring headlines from the site’s video reports.
By clicking on a new T-shirt icon that will accompany the headlines, news fans can order a custom crew-neck -- in black, white or grey -- emblazoned with the headline along with the slogan, “I just saw it on CNN.com,” and the time stamp from the moment they clicked.
CNN won’t offer all video headlines for T-shirt treatment, drawing the line at serious crimes, accidents and other potentially inappropriate topics (although, of course, that’s a matter of taste).
Perusing the possibilities at CNN.com last week, we were already picking out slacks to go with our “Boy’s Nose Blows Up 213 Balloons in an Hour” and “Toddler Forced to Smoke Pot in Video” T-shirts.
But we had to wonder if the campaign might draw readers to the more sensational headlines at the expense of the more newsworthy -- or at least encourage CNN copy editors to punch up their headlines a little too much.
The opposite, actually -- a CNN spokesperson said it was the editors’ wit that inspired the idea.
