Can't get no sassy faction.

• Position: Brief Article

We received two e-mails from readers on the same day recently.

"I have just had the opportunity to scan through the March issue," wrote Dana Hutchens, a recruiting coordinator at Wake Forest University, "and wanted to express my dissatisfaction with your headline and [photo] cutline for the Professions section. What poor taste you showed when you made puns concerning the funeral-home business and the issue of dying. That ranks as one of the worst journalistic decisions I have seen in quite a long time."

The headline: They prosper when their customers go in the hole. Cutline: Folks are dying to do business with funeral directors like Brandon Cook.

The other one was from Barry Munson, who works in Joyner Library at East Carolina University. "I have been writing abstracts of articles in BNC for the North Carolina Collection's Periodical Index on the World Wide Web for the past eight years. Titles of articles are awaited with anticipation each month. I don't know who creates them, but the lawyer one on p. 56 is a classic. Keep it up!"

He was referring to the People item about Art Donaldson, who has become majority owner of three minor-league sports teams in Greensboro: Lawyer drops briefs to become athletic supporter.

This magazine's motto is: Business shouldn't be boring, and one way we make sure our coverage of it isn't is through sharp, snappy writing. Just the other week, a reader called BNC "sassy." He meant it as a compliment, which is exactly how we took it. As I stated in this column more than a dozen years ago, "If there's...