“Fucking” in its headline rocketed to the top of the Google News front page. This earned Google four complaints.

Two months ago City Paper ran the words “Suck Your Dick” on the front cover. The image went up online the day before and elicited nary a peep, but when the issue hit stands, woo boy. We got so many complaints we had to to divide up a list of angry callers to phone back. Also, it got us on Fox, which redacted the headline to “‘You Put Me Out in Denver ‘Cause I Wouldn’t (blank) (blank) (blank)’.” (Since when is “Your” a standards and practices issue?)

Google News has a reach Washington City Paper couldn’t even dream of approximating. It is, however, consumed one person at a time, not displayed on a newsstand kids could conceivably walk by and ask their parents about. This possibility, though no specific instance of this happening, motivated many of our angriest letter-writers. Someone got so angry that s/he swore publicly her/himself!