On Killing The Adolescent Imagination

Beyond the comics, newspapers have always had trouble connecting with young readers, and if anything that is even more true today, witness this screed from the WaPo Kids Section:

"Somali pirates don't wear ruffled shirts and have parrots on their shoulders; they are dangerous criminals. In fact, there never were pirates who looked like the swashbuckling characters from today's toys and movies. The pirates who terrorized ships off America's coast 250 years ago were also violent thieves and were widely feared and hated."

Perhaps the editors believe that kids have the attention span of fruit flies and are accustomed to being misled at any early age, but wouldn't this have read better:

"Somali pirates don't wear ruffled shirts and have parrots on their shoulders; they are dangerous criminals. While there were pirates who looked like the swashbuckling characters from today's toys and movies who sailed off America's coast 250 years ago and these are great fun, many of them also were violent thieves and were widely feared and hated."

Just asking.

Illustration from Treasure Island by N.C. Wyeth