Jan Worth, a University of Michigan-Flint faculty member, once told me writing a headline for newspapers is like writing poetry, and I agree. Just like poetry, you have to condense the essence of something into a few words.
It's challenging, especially under deadline pressure. It's much easier to create an incorrect or inappropriate headline. And while accuracy is paramount, injecting a little creativity to draw a reader in is also preferred.
But you can be too clever. For instance, The Flint Journal was criticized for running the headline "Mr. Precedent" the day after President Barack Obama's inauguration. Some readers thought the headline was disrespectful, while others said it was a creative way to honor the 44th president.
In online journalism, writing headlines is different. The goal is follow the principles of search engine optimization, which means including keywords search engines can find easily.
This chapter also discusses titles, captions and blurbs. One type of caption is a cutline. It is written to describe a photo, and it is often troublesome. Typically, this is because they need to be cut for length or require additional editing.
What experiences have you had with headlines, captions, titles and blurbs? How does it compare with editing stories? Do you think we'll be losing the art of writing creative headlines because of search engine optimization?
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Jessica Mora has volunteered to participate in this week's discussion. An additional note: Because of Spring Break, the discussion will remain open through Sunday, March 1.
I do think that if journalism goes to the Web, the art of writing headlines and cutlines (but specifically headlines) will go away. When I was first taught how to write headlines for the Web at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, I must say my first reaction was to be a little disappointed. I actually enjoy the challenge of writing the two-word headline. On the Web, it's the exact opposite. You want to cram in as many words as possible in a Web headline to hit almost every search combination you think someone would enter to attract the largest possible amount of traffic.
With headlines though, spelling and accuracy is critically important. If you think you'll catch it for spelling someone's name wrong in a story, try doing it in a headline. You'll never live it down. One of my most embarassing moments at the Pioneer Press was when I submitted a headline to my slot editor (thank goodness we had one) that spelled the name of the Denver Broncos incorrectly. I spelled it "Bronchos," as I had seen elsewhere (such as for Western Michigan University), without double-checking. I got called in for a meeting with my editor the next day, when he pointed it out. Needless to say, I learned from that point to ALWAYS double-check my headlines.
Cutlines are a similar beast, but you usually have more room to work with. Sometimes, however, it can be a challenge to fit in all the information you want, especially if it's a generic photo. Usually if it is, you have to first write a sentence about what's actually going on in the photo, and then (if there's room) write another sentence about what's going on in the story. For instance, there have been a lot of stories about the automakers lately, but a lot of the time the photo is of factory workers or cars on the lot. So your cutline would end up looking something like this:
"The lot at Smith's Chrysler and Jeep is filled with unsold new cars Sunday in Grand Blanc. With the auto companies reeling from a lack of sales, GM and Chrysler have gone back to Congress asking for another $17.4 billion in federal loans."
Both sentences are necessary, because you want to explain the photo, but just a photo of cars in a parking lot doesn't really add a lot to what the story is really about. The problem is once you write both sentences, a lot of times you're out of room!
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