MINDLESS WORD LINKING

I've written about this before: combinations like "new baby" (there is no other kind) and "binding arbitration" (there is no other kind).

As you all know, I'm not much driven by local news but I have just reviewed my papers after a weekend away and saw a new mindless linkage in the Whig. The reference was to Floyd Landis, the bike-rider with the allegedly bad pee pee last year. It referred to him in the headline as the
"Defending Champion", then made clear in the article he wasn't racing (that is, he wasn't "defending"). So how would a non-competing champion be "defending"? He couldn't. He could be the "reigning" champion or the "current" champion but he couldn't be the "defending" champion if he wasn't defending jack (Other than the international doper tribunal brought to you by Dick Pound and WADA--you really can't make that stuff up!).

Putting out a newspaper every day's gotta be brutal work but this was a clanger and I'm guessing it was brought about by mindlessly linking words.