Headline

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The headline is the text indicating the content or nature of the article below it, typically by providing a form of brief summary of its contents.

The large type front page headline did not come into use until the late 19th century when increased competition between newspapers led to the use of attention-getting headlines.

It is sometimes termed a news hed, a deliberate misspelling that dates from production flow during hot type days, to notify the composing room that a written note from an editor concerned a headline and should not be set in type.<ref>NY Times: On Language: HED</ref>

Headlines in English often use a set of grammatical rules known as headlinese, designed to meet stringent space requirements by, for example, leaving out forms of the verb "to be" and choosing short verbs like "eye" over longer synonyms like "consider".

Production

The New York Times uses an unusually large headline to announce the Armistice with Germany at the end of World War I.

A headline's purpose is to quickly and briefly draw attention to the story. It is generally written by a copy editor, but may also be written by the writer, the page layout designer, or other editors. The most important story on the front page above the fold may have a larger headline if the story is unusually important. The New York TimesTemplate:'s 21 July 1969 front page stated, for example, that "MEN WALK ON MOON", with the four words in gigantic size spread from the left to right edges of the page.<ref name="wilford20090714">Template:Cite news</ref>

In the United States, headline contests are sponsored by the American Copy Editors Society, the National Federation of Press Women, and many state press associations; some contests consider created content already published,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> others are for works written with winning in mind.<ref>A NYTimes contest to write a NYPost-style headlineTemplate:Cite news</ref>

Typology

Research in 1980 classified newspaper headlines into four broad categories: questions, commands, statements, and explanations.Template:Sfn Advertisers and marketers classify advertising headlines slightly differently into questions, commands, benefits, news/information, and provocation.Template:Sfn

Research

Template:See also Template:Multiple image A study indicates there has been a substantial increase of sentiment negativity and decrease of emotional neutrality in headlines across written popular U.S.-based news media since 2000.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="10.1371/journal.pone.0276367">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Another study concluded that those who have gained the most experience with reading newspapers "spend most of their reading time scanning the headlines—rather than reading [all or most of] the stories".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Headlines can bias readers toward a specific interpretation and readers struggle to update their memory in order to correct initial misconceptions in the cases of misleading or inappropriate headlines.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

One approach investigated as a potential countermeasure to online misinformation is "attaching warnings to headlines of news stories that have been disputed by third-party fact-checkers", albeit its potential problems include e.g. that false headlines that fail to get tagged are considered validated by readers.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Criticism

Sensationalism, inaccuracy and misleading headlines

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"Slam"

The use of "slam" in headlines has attracted criticism on the grounds that the word is overused and contributes to media sensationalism.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The violent imagery of words like "slam", "blast", "rip", and "bash" has drawn comparison to professional wrestling, where the primary aim is to titillate audiences with a conflict-laden and largely predetermined narrative, rather than provide authentic coverage of spontaneous events.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Crash blossoms

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"Crash blossoms" is a term used to describe headlines that have unintended ambiguous meanings, such as The Times headline "Hospitals named after sandwiches kill five". The word 'named' is typically used in headlines to mean "blamed/held accountable/named [in a lawsuit]",<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> but in this example it seems to say that the hospitals' names were related to sandwiches. The headline was subsequently changed in the electronic version of the article.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The term was coined in August 2009 on the Testy Copy Editors web forum<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> after the Japan Times published an article entitled "Violinist Linked to JAL Crash Blossoms"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (since retitled to "Violinist shirks off her tragic image").<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Headlinese

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Old newspaper featuring headlinese like "WOMAN MYSTERY-DEATH VICTIM" and "Drop 150 Teachers Tonight, Board Plan".
Headlinese has a long history. This example is the front page of the Los Angeles Herald issue of May 29, 1916.

Headlinese is an abbreviated form of news writing style used in newspaper headlines.<ref>Headlinese Collated definitions via www.wordnik.com</ref> Because space is limited, headlines are written in a compressed telegraphic style, using special syntactic conventions,<ref>Isabel Perez.com: "Newspaper Headlines"</ref> including:

  • Forms of the verb "to be" and articles (a, an, the) are usually omitted.
  • Most verbs are in the simple present tense, e.g. "Governor signs bill", while the future is expressed by an infinitive, with to followed by a verb, as in "Governor to sign bill"
  • The conjunction "and" is often replaced by a comma, as in "Bush, Blair laugh off microphone mishap".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
  • Individuals are usually specified by surname only, with no honorifics.
  • Organizations and institutions are often indicated by metonymy: "Wall Street" for the US financial sector, "Whitehall" for the UK government administration, "Madrid" for the government of Spain, "Davos" for the World Economic Forum, and so on.
  • Many abbreviations, including contractions and acronyms, are used: in the UK, some examples are Lib Dems (for the Liberal Democrats), Tories (for the Conservative Party); in the US, Dems (for "Democrats") and GOP (for the Republican Party, from the nickname "Grand Old Party"). The period (full point) is usually omitted from these abbreviations, though U.S. may retain them, especially in all-caps headlines to avoid confusion with the word us.
  • Lack of a terminating full stop (period) even if the headline forms a complete sentence.
  • Use of single quotation marks to indicate a claim or allegation that cannot be presented as a fact. For example, an article titled "Ultra-processed foods 'linked to cancerTemplate:' " covered a study which suggested a link but acknowledged that its findings were not definitive.<ref name="bad-news"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum characterizes this practice as deceptive, noting that the single-quoted expressions in newspaper headlines are often not actual quotations, and sometimes convey a claim that is not supported by the text of the article.<ref name=PullumLL>Template:Cite web</ref> Another technique is to present the claim as a question, hence Betteridge's law of headlines.<ref name="bad-news">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Some periodicals have their own distinctive headline styles, such as Variety and its entertainment-jargon headlines, most famously "Sticks Nix Hick Pix".

Commonly used short words

To save space and attract attention, headlines often use extremely short words, many of which are not otherwise in common use, in unusual or idiosyncratic ways:<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Template:Div col

  • ace (a professional, especially a member of an elite sports team, e.g. "England ace")
  • axe (to eliminate)
  • bid (to attempt)
  • blast (to heavily criticize)
  • cagers (basketball team – "cage" is an old term for indoor court)<ref>"When the Court was a Cage" Template:Webarchive, Sports Illustrated</ref>
  • chop (to eliminate)
  • coffer(s) (a person or entity's financial holdings)
  • confab (a meeting)Template:CN
  • eye (to consider)
  • finger (to accuse, blame)
  • fold (to shut down)
  • gambit (an attempt)
  • hail (to praise, welcome)
  • hike (to increase, raise)
  • ink (to sign a contract)
  • jibe (an insult)
  • laud (to praise)
  • lull (a pause)
  • mar (to damage, harm)
  • mull (to contemplate)
  • nab (to acquire, arrest)
  • nix (to reject)
  • parley (to discuss)
  • pen (to write)
  • probe (to investigate)
  • quiz (to question, interrogate)
  • rap (to criticize)
  • romp (an easy victory or a sexual encounter)
  • row (an argument or disagreement)
  • rue (to lament)
  • see (to forecast)
  • slay (to murder)
  • slam (to heavily criticize)
  • slump (to decrease)
  • snub (to reject)
  • solon (to judge)
  • spat (an argument or disagreement)
  • spark (to cause, instigate)
  • star (a celebrity, often modified by another noun, e.g. "soap star")
  • tap (to select, choose)
  • tot (a child)
  • tout (to put forward)
  • woe (disappointment or misfortune)Template:Div col end

Famous examples

Great Satan sits down with the Axis of EvilTemplate:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore</ref>

In 1986, The New Republic editor Michael Kinsley held a contest to find the most boring newspaper headline after seeing "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative" over a New York Times column by Flora Lewis.<ref name="worthwhile">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="kinsley19860602">Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="kinsley20100728">Template:Cite web</ref> He reported being "absolute comatose with appreciation" for submissions, such as "Economist Dies" in the Wisconsin State Journal and "Prevent Burglary by Locking House, Detectives Urge" in the Boston Globe. In 2003, New York Magazine published a list of eleven "greatest tabloid headlines".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

On 22 June 1978, The Guardian ran an article with the headline "Foot hits back on Nazi comparison".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Reader David C. Allan of Edinburgh responded with a letter to the editor, which the paper ran on 27 June. Decrying the headline's apparent pun, Allan suggested that, if Foot were in future to be appointed Secretary of State for Defence, The Guardian might cover it under the headline "Foot Heads Arms Body".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The belief later gained currency that The Times actually had run the headline.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The headline does not, however, appear in The Times Digital Archive.<ref name="timesarchive">Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

References

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Works cited

news headlinesHeadlines

Further reading

  • Harold Evans (1974). News Headlines (Editing and Design : Book Three) Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd. Template:ISBN
  • Fritz Spiegl (1966). What The Papers Didn't Mean to Say. Scouse Press, Liverpool Template:ISBN
  • Mårdh, Ingrid (1980); Headlinese: On the Grammar of English Front Page headlines; "Lund studies in English" series; Lund, Sweden: Liberläromedel/Gleerup; Template:ISBN
  • Biber, D. (2007); "Compressed noun phrase structures in newspaper discourse: The competing demands of popularization vs. economy"; in W. Teubert and R. Krishnamurthy (eds.); Corpus linguistics: Critical concepts in linguistics; vol. V, pp. 130–141; London: Routledge

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