Headline panel leaves lots to think about
No. 53 for June 2006
Common Sense Journalism
By Doug Fisher
Headline panel leaves lots to think about
The modern newspaper is designed for skimmers, not just readers. That means more decks in headlines, catchy heads and other blurbs and doodads that we keep telling ourselves will pull people in and give those skimmers enough of the story that they get some value.
And, as usual, the “Inside nonreaders’ heads” panel at the recent American Copy Editors Society meeting in Cleveland should have us questioning some of that accepted wisdom.
- Those decks to help explain the story – and that we sometimes lean on to explain a tight main head – often don’t get read. “I feel like the deck is just filler between the headline and the regular text,” said Erin Kennedy, a high school senior on the panel.
- Pictures that don’t reflect the headline can be jarring.
- That other typographical furniture? Too often more distraction than help.
- Catchy headlines are good if not forced. But most of all make sure the head makes clear why someone should read the story.
Instead of the usual panel of nonreaders, this time all four were intensely interested in news and said they would read a paper – if the head caught their attention and they had time. Only Willow Andrews, who is raising her family at home, pointedly said she once read newspapers but quit because too much fluff crowded out vital information. She now uses public radio and the Internet.
Jane Trager worked for many years at a suburban Cleveland paper and now works for Ohio’s corrections agency. The fourth person, Sambala Boyd, is a young man from the Virgin Islands who works at local hotel. He and Andrews are black; Kennedy and Trager are white.
Reaction to this head from an inside page highlights the complexities of assembling a newspaper for today’s diverse audience:
Iraqi police unearth the bodies of 87 slain men
Kennedy found little to attract her when “it’s a common story now; you have it everywhere.”
“I want to read them,” she said, “but I want to know why this story is important. Why is it more important than the 30 men they found yesterday?”
But Andrews said she would read the story “to find out who these people are and why they are dead. … You don’t just say there are five more today.”
“It’s not a matter of not caring,” Boyd said. “It’s a matter of seeing it over and over.”
He said he probably would read the headline but skip the story and go to an “Other Developments” box. “It’s something else, something I don’t know,” he said.
This head, with its sexual innuendo, brought twitters from the audience:
Pinot Envy
It went with a story of how the movie “Sideways” promoted the wine. “Get your mind out of the gutter,” Kennedy admonished any nervous copy editors. And from Trager: “I just think it’s a hoot.”
Likewise, this head, on a sports story, generally went over well:
Urine trouble: Smith caught with cheat kit
Airport police find dried urine that is used with ‘The original Whizzinator’ to beat drug tests “Urine” again had some editors twittering, but was no problem for the panel, nor was repeating it in the head and deck. But using only “Smith” was a stumbling block. Kennedy said the catchphrase got her interested, but she wasn’t sure why she should read the story.
Trager also wondered who Smith was, “But I’d read the story because I work with people who try to cheat on their urine tests all the time.” She didn’t think the head might tend to convict Smith in public opinion. “If you have a cheat kit, you have a cheat kit. Why do you need a cheat kit?” she said.
However, this attempt to be catchy on a weather story fell flat:
A Sun-undrum
Fifteen days after March strolled in gentle as a lamb, not even a meteorologist can say whether the lion will awake with a roar.
Boyd said he might read it, but he would skip the deck. Trager agreed, and Kennedy said of the whole thing: “I think it’s a title, not a headline.” She’d skip to the next page. Andrews said her 9-year-old son is fan of the Weather Channel and knows all about weather. “But if I put this in front of him, it would take an hour” for him to figure out.
The following head was paired with several pictures, the main one showing a woman at home lying on a sofa and talking on a cell phone (the woman had been through the ordeal of a rockslide on Interstate 84):
In a flash, death barrels toward her
A woman is cruising I-84 one second, recovering from flying boulders the next
Boyd loved it – “It sounds like the beginning of a story” – and Andrews said it would draw her in. But the disconnect between the picture of a woman lying seemingly serenely and the idea of a rockslide jarred Kennedy and Trager.
There were other heads, and a full summary will be on the Common Sense Journalism blog, http://commonsensej.blogspot.com. In one case, for instance, the use between a headline and a story of a picture referring readers to a related story confused the panel.
Alex Cruden of the Detroit Free Press has organized these ACES sessions for almost a decade, and this year he was helped by Holly Franko of The Oregonian.
Doug Fisher, a former AP news editor, teaches journalism at the University of South Carolina and can be reached at dfisher@sc.edu or 803-777-3315. Past issues of Common Sense Journalism can be found at http://www.jour.sc.edu/news/csj/index.html.