Headlines

The "Best Headlines of the Year" Web page was a humorous and effective way of emphasizing the importance of coherent and concise headings. Headlines need to be introduce pertinent information and create a suitable transition into the rest of the story. Lines like "War Dims Hope for Peace" and "Couple Slain; Police suspect Homicide" fail miserably. These captions unnecessarily state the obvious and make lousy introductions to their respective articles.

The Headline "Police Begin to Campaign to Run Down Jay Walkers" is a much worse offender. To one reader this phrase will induce laughter. This is clearly a major problem. Headlines are supposed to pull readers into a story and make them want to find out more. If you write an excellent caption you have successfully drawn more eyes into your piece. Conversely, if you screw up the headline you lose your readers immediately. So, to one person this headline will read like a joke, and belittle the officer's attempts to thwart a crime. To another reader, this headline may convince them that their local police force is made up of crazed vigilantes out for blood.

"Teacher Strikes Idle Kids" poses another major problem. This instantly transforms a piece about a teacher's strike into a case about classroom abuse. Here, readers will go into the story expecting to read about a disgruntled math teacher, whipping kids with rulers, and wind up learning about educators picketing in the rain. This caption will pull in the wrong audience, and makes the educators look like perpetrators instead of the victims. The headline is the first chance you have to connect with a reader. You could win them over with a snappy pun, or make them lose faith in you as a writer with a jumbled mess of headline like this one.

I was pleased to hear Christian Hernandez commend the local tabloid writers for their clever headlines. As a student journalist, I'm constantly told that my silly headlines or witty puns detract from my story. The news media is notorious for blowing things out of proportion and taking things far too seriously. It seems like the media would rather instill fear into reader's hearts than put a smile on reader's faces. Nobody stopped Katie Couric when she decided to use scare tactics and transformed the piece into a psychological analysis of the NASA program. The main point behind her story seemed to be: "Watch out! It could happen again to you!" This approach is fine and dandy if the related material poses and actual threat to readers. But honestly, what astronauts are going to wear diapers and try to kidnap you. Perhaps if a story is truly this ridiculous and over-the-top an over-the-top headline fits perfectly. I'm tired of the news media spinning stories like this one into cautionary tales. The crazy astronaut woman doesn't even deserve a straight-laced, full-length piece. In this scenario the goofy headlines reign triumphant over the Couric's mega-serious, dismal coverage.

The bailout headlines are overloaded with action words like "kill," sink," "derail" and "convulse." I mean, I get it. These authors are using personification. They are giving life to an inanimate idea. But, for me it doesn't work. Surprisingly, the worst headline here is from the New York Times. The caption is incredibly lengthy at 11 words, and it has not one, but two awkward semicolons. To me, the best headline here was written by The Salt Lake Tribune. The other papers jumped on the "economy is going to hell" bandwagon, made their headlines too long, and stuffed them with those ridiculous action words. The Tribune kept it simple, avoided awful personification, and kept it a little lighthearted in a bleak time of economic uncertainty.

The Blagojevich article made it clear just how well headlines and photographs can work together. Some of these front pages are truly powerful. Perhaps the best example of this is the one word headline: "Shame."Below this caption is a picture of Blagojevich hiding in the backseat of his expensive car. These headlines also played out as a way for homestate journalists to vent out some of their anger and disillusion. Illinois is a state that has become synonymous with political corruption. Chicago overcomes allegations of shady politics for a brief moment by offering our country its new charismatic president. And then, BLAM! Chicago politics are once again tainted. Blagojevich cut Illinois moment of glory short with his greedy tactics. You can definitely see the anger and frustration in these simple, effective headlines.

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