Extra Extra Read All About It
(Tabloid Trash Headlines are not Considered Below, but I Couldn’t Resist This One)
The other day there was a headline in the London Free Press that caught my attention, so today our subject is ‘Headlines’. That subject is further restricted to the type of headlines one sees in newspapers; the ones that are constructed to grab your attention and provide a hint about the topic being covered. Internet headline spam, the spawn of clickbait, is not considered.
The need for brevity, the lack of punctuation and the often odd arrangement of words can create confusing headlines, but also unintentional humour: “Criminally Insane Bill Passes”; “Sharks Stop Search for Span Collapse Victims”. The need to meet a deadline sometimes results in ones that are just incorrect: “Dewey Defeats Truman”. If you have your own deadline you can jump right to the lists of examples provided below.
The headline in the London Free Press (on July 17) is: “13th Doctor Who is a Woman”. As one who is not paying much attention to popular culture, I assumed the article was about females who were having a hard time cracking the glass ceilings in medical clinics.
The former editor-in-chief of the LFP, Paul Berton, who now has the same position at the Hamilton Spectator, wrote about headlines a while back after some readers complained about the use of a pun in a headline in that paper: “The Prince of Wails”. Here are some samples from his piece:
“Federal agents raid gun shop, find weapons”
“Marijuana issue sent to a joint committee”
“Homicide victims rarely talk to police”
“17 remain dead in morgue shooting spree”
“Bridges help people cross rivers”
“City unsure why the sewer smells”
“Meeting on open meetings is closed”
“Caskets found as workers demolish mausoleum”
“Meat head resigns”
“Man with 8 DUIs blames drinking problem”
“Parents keep kids home to protest school closure”
He concludes by reminding us that the headline writer has to generate very quickly a lot of short headlines to summarize long articles.
Columbia Journalism Review
If you are looking for other sources, this publication is the place to begin. I used to grab copies of this magazine off the shelves and turn immediately to the inside of the back cover where one found the “Lower Case”. The entire page was full of reproduced headlines that were sent in by readers (they are all ‘real’ and were accompanied by the actual source - unlike the ‘fake’ ones I will provide below). One of my all-time favorites (which is now marginally politically correct): “Jesse Owens Dies; His Feats Live On”.
“Smoking warning labels will help save lives”
“Research finds club improves children”
“Dad says diplomat had passion for foreign affairs”
“Mother arrested after drowning”
“173 animals seized; 2 face cruelty charges”
“Chimpanzees get pregnant despite vasectomies”
“Shark bites land surfer in hospital”
“Plans made for east side crime wave”
“Army school suspends female head”
“Endangered fish holds up water plant”
“Middletown man hides crack in his buttocks”
“Man charged in electrocutions”
“Rangers' Hamilton to get shot for sore knee”
“Mrs. Ghandi stoned at rally in India”
“Nixon To Stand Pat On Watergate Tapes”
“Juvenile court to try shooting defendant”
“Shouting Match Ends Teacher's Hearing”
“Prostitutes appeal to Pope”
“High court OKs extra time for sex crimes”
“Stud tires out” (about banned studded tires)
“Experts suggest education standards might be to lofty”
Additional examples from the CJR are to be found in some sources provided below. The “Lower Case” no longer exists, but if you go to the digital Columbia Journalism Review you will still find examples under this heading: “Headlines Editors Probably Wish They Could Take Back”.
The Saturday Review of Literature
This magazine is no longer published, but is still a good source for headline bloopers. Actually, bloopers were also reported from deeper within articles and readers often sent in pictures of signs and such things as examples from memos. One of the funny sign examples from back in 1969 has now become almost a sign cliché and was spotted at the neighborhood pub just last week: HAVE YOUR NEXT AFFAIR HERE. (One of my favorite business names was noticed on a hair salon somewhere in the interior of British Columbia; THE WACK AND YACK.
Samples in The Saturday Review are found in two sections of the magazine: 1) In the column “Trade Winds” during the 1960s and 1970s (often written by Bennett Cerf) and 2) in the section “Curmudgeon-at-Large” in the 1970s when Cleveland Amory was usually the curmudgeon.
Examples of journalistic mistakes and oddities are often written about in other publications as well. Punch recorded this example from South Africa back in 1980: “When a man saw someone dash into a sugar plantation carrying a pair of human feet and legs, he suspected that something sinister was happening the Durban Criminal Sessions heard yesterday” The New Yorker sometimes sprinkles samples at the page bottom under headlines like “Block That Metaphor”.
The NEWSEUM
More examples will be found at the Newseum, a museum in Washington where apparently media mistakes are sprawled like graffiti on the bathroom walls. You can also find there a book full of them: Correct Me If I'm Wrong: Press Bloopers as Seen in the Newseum. “The snippets featured in the collection include errant headlines -- "Asteroid Nearly Misses Earth" (The Washington Post, June 24, 2002) -- and questionable photo captions, messed-up weather maps, curious copy and even some regrettably incorrect corrections, such as this one from the Sept. 2, 1976, Evening Herald of Rock Hill, S.C.: "Chief Blue, the last full-blooded Catawba Indian Chief died in 1959. The Evening Herald incorrectly said Wednesday that he died three years ago due to a reporting error."
FAKE HEADLINES
Given that the news from the lamestream media is said to be mostly fake, I might as well include some samples of completely made-up and untrue headlines. They are found in abundance at “America’s Finest News Source” - The Onion.
“Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeros”
“Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia”
“Man With Heart Disease Eagerly Awaits Young Boy’s Death”
“NRA Shifts Focus From Guns to Penmanship”
“Desperate Vegetarians Declare Cows Plants”
“Black Box Reveals TWA Flight 800 Passengers Missed End of Dragonheart”
“Nation’s Educators Alarmed by Poorly Written Teen Suicide Notes”
“Massive Oil Spill Results in Improved Wildlife Viscosity”
“Tractor Pulls Now Number-One Use For U.S. Tractors”
“Viagra Giving Hope to Thousands of Struggling Stand-up Comedians”
“Colorado Judge Imposes Ban on Same-Sex Friendships”
“Who Will Kill the Roaches After the Apocalypse?”
“Great Books of Western Civilization Used to Accent Den”
“Taco Bell Launches New ‘Morning After’ Burrito”
“‘Midwest’ Discovered Between East, West Coasts”
“Islamic Fundamentalists Condemn Casual Day”
“New Remote Control Can be Operated By Remote”
P.S.
Some bonus headlines for those who read this far:
Here are two that are rather unclear: “Climber Who Cut Off Arm to Escape Speaking at MSU” AP August 29, 2011. (about the guy who cut off his arm to escape from a cave);
“Garbage Truck Lands on Saturn”, CBC May 28, 2012. (the Saturn was a car in Edmonton)
Others:
“For Towns Hold Elections”
Times-Record, Denton, Md. April 27, 2011.
“Pedestrian Deaths Largely Flat in U.S., Maryland”
Baltimore Sun, May 7, 2013
“Bishops Agree Sex Abuse Rules”
Sunday Business Post, Dublin, April 3, 2011
“Women’s Body Seeks Member”
Montreal Gazette, July 30, 1981
“Church Member Donates Organ to St. Aloysius”
“6 Year Old Girl Just Found After 26 Years”
“Northfield Plans to Plan Strategic Plan”
“Amnesty Champions Tortured Girl”
“Defendant's Speech Ends in Long Sentence”
Sources:
“Writing headlines is an art ... ... Unfortunately, not everyone who writes them is a Rembrandt,” Paul Berton, The Hamilton Spectator, August 3, 2013.
He also covered the subject in: “We regret the error; Mistakes inevitably happen, but we do our best,” Paul Berton, The Hamilton Spectator, May 14, 2011.
“Crash Blossoms,” by Ben Zimmer, NYT Magazine, Jan. 27, 2010.
True journalists will appreciate: “Headlines: The Unappreciated Art,” by Lynn Ludlow,
In ETC: A Review of General Semantics, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Fall 1988), pp. 236-245
Books:
In addition to the book mentioned in the Newseum section above see the following:
For two collections of headlines from the Columbia Journalism Review see:
For two collections of headlines from the Columbia Journalism Review see:
Red Tape Holds up New Bridge
Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim, and Other Flubs from the Nation's Press
Regret the Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free Speech, by Craig Silverman.
Double Bonus Source - A place where you can read lots of old magazines like The Saturday Review of Literature. http://www.unz.org/ (Don’t tell everyone).
Many are hoping for a headline in the very near future that will look somewhat like this one:
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