A case for boring headlines…
When I was a student journalist in the mid 1970s, writing headlines was a huge pain in the ass because you had to write a good headline (i.e. snappy, newsy, informative, dramatic) and make it fit the space. Without computer pagination, that fitting part was difficult.
Anyone can think of a snappy headline if fitting the space isn’t a problem. We had to choose a font and size, then count the width of each letter and space in picas to make sure it fit. Geez, how many times I wrote killer headline only to discover is was two counts too long…AARGH!
The journalistic penchant for snappy headlines was born out of the old typesetting days. Good headlines were difficult to write, and “good” was defined as a dramatic, informative headline that fit.
We never questioned the criteria for good. Our textbooks and our professors defined good for us. And we dutifully set out to pun and count ourselves into skilled copy editors.
Now I wonder.
Michael Schudson says Americans have become “monitorial citizens,” which means we’ve evolved into scanners of civic information. We scan the headlines (i.e. we read newspapers the way President Bush does), keep an ear on news/talk radio, and watch news on TV (which delivers mostly headlines). We cover lots of ground at very little depth.
If Schudson is correct, it seems to me that “good” headline writing plays a role in this broad shallow coverage. Further, I notice that headlines also provide fodder for bias crusaders. There’s just no way to boil down the important elements of a news situation into a headline and do the events and people involved any justice (i.e. balance and fairness).
Let’s look at two examples I gleaned from a recent post from Talking Points Memo regarding the recent Madrid Donors’ Conference:
From the Washington Post:
Iraq Donations Fall Short: Many Pledges in the Form of Loans, Debt Relief, Not Grants
From Reuters:
Donors Promise Iraq $33 Billion, Smashing Expectations
Do these headlines describe the same event? Yes and no: “Yes” in the sense that both headlines and articles cover the Madrid Donors’ Conference, but “no” in the sense that different political values, or points of view, emerge from these headlines.
Ah, ha! Bias!
Yeah, but what kind? The commonality here, the predictive element that explains both, is drama from the narrative bias of journalism. As monitorial citizens, I think much of our experience of bias in the news media comes from reading dramatic headlines.
There is no way to write a headline in politically neutral language because no such language exists. To use language is to speak from a point of view. But, let me suggest that journalists could instead write “boring” headlines.
Conventional wisdom says that headlines must be dramatic (although many a crusty copy editor wouldn’t use this adjective) to induce people to read the article. Perhaps. But it’s certain that a boring headline would force a reading of the article because the drama and news would then be found in the latter (assuming the information and knowledge are worth the reading effort).
Isn’t this just a recipe for continued loss of circulation? Perhaps. But all that jazzy crap we see today (fluff above the flag, etc.) isn’t doing much to stop the bleeding. What if newspapers left the old headline ethos to TV, stopped competing with electronic media, and provided deep, contextual second-day coverage? What if newspapers took their readers seriously? What if headlines were boring?
UPDATE (28 Oct. 4:30 p.m.): Jay Manifold takes this in an interesting direction by wondering what “deep, contextual second-day coverage” could mean to news-blog hybrid products.
What if the New York Times, the Paper of Record, the Gold Standard of Reporting, the God of All Journalists stopped doing stuff like this in Sunday’s paper? Headline: Why Are We Back in Vietnam? Bottom line of columnist and theatre critic Frank Rich: “At the tender age of six months, the war in Iraq is not remotely a Vietnam.”
I’ll say again that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a “monitorial citizen,” even — perhaps especially — at W’s level. Indecisive leadership frightens people more than uninformed leadership, for understandable if exasperating reasons of evolutionary psychology. We all have the same amount of time, and most of us read at maybe 250 words per minute. This paper quotes another one to the effect that “the median daily reading time for various text sources is much less than 20 minutes.” So how does the richest, most powerful country in the world keep going when its inhabitants read well under 5,000 words per day — “much less than” the equivalent of half a dozen typewritten pages of single-spaced text? Especially when much of what little they do read is purely technical, religious, or work-related?
I’d suggest two things that mitigate this: 1) they read the headlines and, for all the justified complaints about superficiality and bias, are actually pretty good at allocating their mental bandwidth to deal with any imminent threat (to borrow a phrase); and 2) however screwed up things may be in the US, they seem to be worse just about everywhere else.
Jay…you take this in an interesting direction. I do not mean to suggest it’s bad to be monitorial. I would assert that it’s bad for the President, but that’s another matter.
I’m wondering if “boring” headlines would focus reading to those issues of most importance. If one has to work “harder” for it, I wonder if it’s logical to suppose that one will then work harder for a certain type of (politically useful) information.
I’m getting some insight into why neither of us is running a major metropolitan daily newspaper. “We Make Our Readers Work Harder!”
But proper focus undoubtedly is important, which in the context of typical headlines and the strategies behind them, is a little scary. “Nor … must they ever be allowed to raise Aristotle’s question: whether ‘democratic behaviour’ means the behaviour that democracies like or the behaviour that will preserve a democracy.” — CS Lewis, “Screwtape Proposes A Toast”
We outta create a logo for that! I’m serious. I’ve been thinking about my posts quite a bit lately–noticing that I’m writing long and dense.
Aren’t blog entries supposed to be short and pithy? Hell, no. They are supposed to be exactly what the author wants them to be. Think of the blogs that would be so much less interesting if their authors wrote short, easy entries, e.g. PressThink.
Geez, this has a lot of implications for the concept of audience–raising some interesting chicken-and-egg questions.
Man, we gotta start a movement!
Re: Aristotle
You mean they aren’t the same? hahaha!
Speaking as a former headline writer myself (cf., http://arguewithsigns.net/mt/archives/001001.html ), I see plenty of boring headlines. One from a local campus newspaper recently: “Pulitzer Prize winner speaks on campus.” This was a follow-up story, not the preview. “Council considers tax increase” or “City votes on zoning issue” are other examples that come to mind. I think you are perhaps spoiled by the craftsmen at the larger newspapers.
Bryan…good point! Let me extend your comment into this observation: Local papers are leading the fight for “boring” headlines!