Encyclical reporting and the "ginger factor"

Tom via Jeff:

The Ginger Factor, named for a well-known "Far Side" cartoon, is a measure of the ratio of words said to words understood. A dog named Ginger, for example, only understands the word "Ginger" in the sentence, "Okay, Ginger, if you get into the garbage one more time, you'll be spending the night outside."

I think most people, not just benighted reporters, experience a high Ginger Factor with most papal encyclicals; my post below includes a paragraph from an apostolic letter that has a high G.F. for me. Naturally, a reporter doesn't report on the parts of a papal statement that sound like, "Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah. blah" And naturally, a reporter does recognize (and report on) the part that sounds like, "This means Senator Rawkins is being naughty."

As Jeff explains, in the case of Spe Salvi, all the reporters can really comprehend gets boiled down to the sentence "Pope blasts atheism", and he has quite a few example headlines to demonstrate that.

Hmm, I wonder notable cases of militant atheism we've been talking about could take note.