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DamageTV
Since: Jul, 2012
WackyMeetsPractical
Since: Oct, 2009
2011-07-24 08:13:29
Could simply be a case of The Law of Conservation of Detail, since if it's not important to actually write a story for the newspaper, they likely won't. If there's a funny message hidden in the paper, It might be an Easter Egg.
DamageTV
Since: Jul, 2012

Here's one (sorry, two) for you, which I couldn't find after searching:
In about a gazillion movies and TV shows, the camera shows a character reading a newspaper. Usually there'll be a large banner headline and a photograph, all relevant to the story.
The camera only passes over the page for a few seconds so you're just supposed to get the big stuff.
However, in the majority of cases, the text of the actual news article under the headline is often complete gibberish, either a series of repeated sentences, or a made up but improperly written article, or a genuine but entirely unrelated newspaper article they've just cut and pasted over.
Sometimes you might even catch some silly messages from a crafty staff writer, or bits of the script used to fill the space.
The assumption is that nobody (like me) would take the trouble to actually check the text, so they don't bother to write a proper newspaper page. Lazy, I tell you!
Is there a name for this trope? Is it even a trope, per se?
Relatedly, any time someone is holding an important piece of paper, it's rare that it actually has written on it what the story claims it does. Often it's just the lines that the character then reads verbatim (when they're supposed to be paraphrasing or commenting on the document), other times it's just a random, completely unrelated document which you catch tantalising glimpses of during freeze-frame.
Is this the same trope, or is there a name for this too?
Any help would be appreciated.