Newspaper Writing and Editing

THE WRITING OF HEADLINES

The Function of the Headline. Headlines as developed by the American press during the last half-century have come to be, next to the news itself, the most important part of our newspapers. From mere labels to indicate the kind of reading matter to be found in the columns under them, headlines in this country have developed into bulletins giving the substance of the articles to which they are attached. By presenting conspicuously in large type the important facts of the story which it precedes, the headline serves a double purpose: it makes possible rapid reading of the news thus outlined in the head, and it becomes an advertisement of the news to attract the purchaser.

Heads Promote Rapid Reading. As concise summaries of the facts of the news, headlines fill an important place in contemporary American life, for, by reading only the headlines, the busy man or woman can get in brief outline the news of the whole world. The size of the type and the arrangement of the parts of the headline aid in a marked degree this rapid reading. Well-written heads that give clearly and accurately the information of greatest significance in the stories under them are an integral part of the newspaper, the function of which, as has been said, is to give the readers in a clear and interesting form the news of the day.

How Heads Advertise News. By their form and position, likewise, the headlines act as advertisements for what the paper contains. Like all good advertisements, headlines should create interest and lead to the sale of the paper. By arousing the reader’s curiosity and at the same time partially satisfying it, the head, when skillfully written, attracts the reader’s attention and influences him to read the story.

A newspaper that aims to have large street sales will naturally take advantage of the advertising element in the heads, by making them as attractive as possible. In fact, the efforts of some newspapers of this class to make the most powerful appeal possible, have led to extreme forms of headlines with great black type and with varicolored effects. In general, morning papers and evening papers with regular subscribers are less inclined to employ large heads for advertising their news than are those evening papers with several street editions that seek to have large sales. Large heads extending across several columns and printed in green, red, or black ink set forth the latest phases of the news in a manner well calculated to catch the eye as the paper is displayed on the news stand or in the hands of the newsboy. As in advertising in general there is always a temptation to make alluring statements at the expense of truth, so in headline advertisement there is a tendency to exaggerate and magnify in order to catch the unwary reader.

Large Heads and “Yellow Journalism.” Since the more sensational papers have taken advantage of this advertising element and have yielded at times to the temptation to exaggerate or even to misrepresent, as is not unheard of in advertising generally, large display effects in headlines have come to be associated in the popular mind with so-called “yellow journalism.” The connection between the two is by no means inevitable, however, for large headlines need not be any more sensational or inaccurate than smaller ones, and may legitimately be used to attract attention to the real features of the news. Conservative papers that do not depend to any considerable extent on street sales tend to keep up the smaller headlines long used in American newspapers, which, while giving the substance of the news in outline, do not attempt to advertise prominently the contents.

Clearness and Conciseness. Regarded as a bulletin of the most important facts in the news, the headline should present these facts in a clear and concise manner. To be clear the form should be one that can be taken in by the eye at a glance. The relation of the divisions, or “decks,” of the head should be evident, so that the reader may get a clear idea of the bearing of one statement on another. The statements should be concrete and specific. The limitations of space make it necessary for the headline to be concise so that the maximum number of important facts may be included.

Action in Headlines. As news is largely concerned with activities, headlines should express the action related in the news story. In defining oratory Demosthenes said that the three essential elements are: first, “action”; second, “action”; and third, “action.” The same characteristics may well be ascribed to the most effective headlines. Life and vividness of expression give interest to heads as they do to the news story. Freshness and originality of phrasing are also successful provided the uncommon form is clear. Short, crisp, specific words constituting definite statements that can be readily grasped in rapid reading, generally make the best headlines.

Headlines are Impartial. Headlines, like the news stories of which they are summaries, should be impartial. It is possible to “color” headlines so that they give a false impression of the news in the stories to which they are attached. The reader tends to carry over into the news story the impression which he gets from the headline, and a “colored” head, therefore, tends to “color” even an impartial, accurate news story. Headlines likewise should not comment on the news; comments on the news should be made in the editorial columns.

Divisions of Headlines. The headline is composed of one or more divisions called “lines,” “decks,” or “banks.” These divisions are separated by dashes and are frequently different in form and in size of type. In the following head, each deck has a distinct form and size of type.

Headlines are constructed on the basis of the four forms that appear in the above example, which may be called respectively, (1) the drop-line; (2) the pyramid; (3) the cross-line; and (4) the hanging indention. Graphically these forms may be represented thus:

Drop-Line Heads. The drop-line head may consist of two, three, or four parts arranged as in the following three heads:

Cross-Line Heads. The cross-line head consists of but one line which may or may not fill the whole space between the column rules. In the following examples, the first head fills the line, and the second only part of the line.

Pyramid Banks. The pyramid head may consist of two, three, or four parts, graduated in length to produce the inverted pyramid effect. The following “bank” illustrates the pyramid of three parts:

Hanging Indention. The hanging indention head consists of several parts, the first of which begins at the column rule on the left, while all the others are indented the width of one or two letters.

The drop-line, cross-line, or pyramid may be used in any deck, whereas the hanging indention head is used only for a deck other than the first.

Combinations of Forms. Various combinations of these four forms may be used to give the variety required for all kinds of stories. For large heads a combination of a two part drop-line, a three part pyramid, a cross-line or another drop-line, and a second pyramid, constitutes a frequent form, as is seen in the following example:

A large three part drop-line head may be followed by a hanging indention line and by a cross-line, as in the following case:

For smaller heads there are several sizes of two part drop-heads, or of cross-lines combined with pyramids or hanging indentions of two or three parts; for example:

Practically every symmetrical arrangement of the four forms of heads can be found in various newspapers, but the principles underlying the writing of any of the combinations are the same.

Type Limits of Heads. The typographical limitations are the most important considerations governing the writing of headlines. These limitations are determined by the size of type and the form of each deck of the head. The possible variation in the parts of the first deck is not more than a letter or two from the normal form. So small is the variation possible within the column width that the size of the letters used has to be considered. Thus the letters “M” and “W” are one and one-half times the size of all the other letters except “I,” which is only one-half as large as the others. In the counting of unit letters in a headline, the writer must consider “M” and “W” as one and one-half units each, and the letter “I” and the figure “1” as half a unit each. Each space between words is counted as one unit. Since the form and symmetry of a head are marred or entirely destroyed by having too few or too many units in any part, great skill is necessary in the choice and the arrangement of words to secure as nearly as possible the exact number of units required for a perfect head.

The effect produced by having too many units is shown in the following heads for which 18 units is the normal number in each half of the two-line drop head.

When the number of units is less than that required for the best effect, the headline is not so unsatisfactory as when too many units are crowded into it, because the short line is more legible than the long one. In each of the following heads the first half contains only 15 units instead of 18, and as a result there is too much space at the end of each of these halves. Both, however, are much more easily read than the crowded ones given above.

That much better results are produced by having each half contain more nearly the required number of units is shown by comparing the next two heads with those preceding.

In headline writing a number of points must be borne in mind. It should be remembered, however, that these are not hard and fast rules but general principles based on newspaper practice.

Why the Head is Based on the “Lead.” As in the normal type of news story all the important facts are given in the lead, the headline, as the bulletin of these facts, is based largely, if not entirely, on the material in the lead. One reason for giving all the essential details in the lead, as has already been pointed out, is that the story may be cut down before or after it is in type. This possibility that the story may be cut down is an additional reason why the headline should be based on the first part of the story, for if the headline contains only the substance of the lead, it need not be rewritten when any part of the story is cut off.

The Tone of the Head. To adapt the character of the headline to the tone of the story is important for the best effect of both. The head should prepare the reader for what is to follow. A humorous or witty headline is well adapted for a story written in a light vein but usually is out of keeping with a plain news story. A suggestion of pathos even may be given in the headline when the story warrants it. Efforts to be funny or tearful, however, ought always to be carefully considered and should not be made unless the circumstances justify them.

Avoiding Repetition. It has come to be a generally recognized point that there should be a minimum amount of repetition of words throughout the head. The same word should not be used more than once either in the same deck or in different decks unless the lack of synonyms makes it absolutely necessary, or unless emphasis is gained by so doing. This, of course, applies in only a limited degree to the necessary connective words, such as conjunctions and prepositions, and parts of the verb “to be.” The writer of heads should have at his command a number of synonymous words and expressions, so that, when he must refer to the same person, object, or action a second or third time, he may be able to vary the expression.

The Interrelation of the Decks. If the grammatical subject remains the same in statements made in two or more decks, it need not be repeated, as it will be understood with the verbs in the following deck or decks. In the head given below, the subject of the verb “stricken” in the first deck, serves as the subject of the verbs “found” in the second deck, “is” in the third, and “will be taken” in the fourth.

Since the subject, when suppressed in any deck, is understood to be the same as that in the deck just preceding, care must be taken to have the verb agree with it grammatically. There is a not unnatural tendency, for example, to use in one deck a singular verb with a collective noun like “common council,” or “faculty” (of a college), and then, changing the idea to the members of these bodies, to use in the next deck a plural verb with the subject suppressed. Thus, in the following head, “tariff board” should not be made the subject of “reports” and “declare.”

Failure to remember that a verb without a subject is assumed to have the same subject as the statement in the deck immediately preceding, not that in any other of the preceding decks, also leads to confusion. The following head, for example, is poor because it is not clear that “president” is the subject of “gives,” since “governor” is the subject of the statement in the preceding deck; nor is it evident that “troops” of the first deck is the subject of “to camp” in the fourth.

The subject is sometimes incorrectly suppressed in one deck when there is no subject in the preceding deck that can be understood for that verb; for example, in the following head there is no word in the first deck that can be taken for the subject of “was” in the second.

Often it is necessary to repeat in other decks with additional details or in more definite form the statement made in the first deck; for example:

When such repetition is necessary for greater clearness, there is no objection to it, but to make several decks merely repetition in other words of the first is a not uncommon fault that should be avoided. If, for example, the foregoing head had been expanded into four decks by mere repetition, the result might have been the following head, in which but one fact is presented.

Most newspapers prefer to have the statement in each deck grammatically independent of that in the preceding deck; that is, they avoid extending a statement through two decks. How such a continuous statement is sometimes made, however, is shown in the following head from the New York Sun:

One peculiar form of headline, some of the best examples of which are found in the Cincinnati Enquirer, depends for its effect upon this continuation of a statement through several decks. Only one word is used for the first deck of large heads of this type, and only one or two in the first deck of smaller heads, as is seen in the following examples:

Style in Heads. Rhyme and alliteration may be used to advantage on rare occasions, but generally this similarity of sound produces a jingling result that is not pleasing. Originality and novelty can be given by choice and combination of words much more effectively than by the artificial means of similar sounds.

To make headlines as concise as possible the articles “a,” “an,” and “the” are omitted, and auxiliary verbs not absolutely necessary are suppressed. When articles and auxiliaries are convenient to fill out the line to the required number of units, they may be retained, but should not be used at the beginning of a deck.

To give freshness and vividness to the head, the verb is usually put in the present tense even though the action is in the past; for example, “Roosevelt Speaks in Cleveland.” Future action is expressed by the infinitive or by the regular future form with “will”; for example, “Roosevelt to Speak in Cleveland,” or “Roosevelt Will Speak in Cleveland.”

The active voice of the verb is preferred to the passive because the active is more vivid and more concise. “Cornell Wins Intercollegiate Regatta,” is better than “Intercollegiate Regatta Won by Cornell.” When, however, the passive is required to give the more significant part of the statement prominence in the first part of the top deck it should be used in preference to the active. In the following head the important point is that the post office has been robbed, rather than the fact that it was robbed by tramps.

This head would be less effective with the active verb, since the robbery of the post office would then go into the second part of the deck, thus:

News value rather than rules must determine in any case whether the active or passive voice is desirable.

The use of abbreviations, likewise, cannot be fixed by rule. In general, only commonly used abbreviations, like “Dr.,” “Prof.,” “Mrs.,” “Mr.,” “St.,” “Co.,” are to be found in headlines. In particular cases, however, others are employed because they are convenient and clear. In Boston, for example, “Tech” as an abbreviation for “Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” is common, and the Boston Herald, therefore, used it to advantage in the head:

During a long campaign for “immediate municipal ownership” in Chicago, the newspapers of that city used almost daily the abbreviation “I.M.O.” So “L” for “elevated railroad” is perfectly clear to readers in New York, Boston, and Chicago. The names of states are not usually abbreviated, although “U.S.” is frequent. Abbreviations like “auto,” “taxi,” and “phone” are so general that they are used without question in headlines.

Colloquial contractions like “can’t,” “we’re,” etc., although not common, may give the life and naturalness often well suited to a story, as for example in the following head:

In the first deck short words are preferred, because in rapid reading they are more easily grasped than long ones, and because two or three words in each part of the line make a better looking, more symmetrical head. To meet the need for short equivalents for long words that are generally accepted terms, new words have been coined and new functions given to old ones. For the long noun “investigation” and the verb “to investigate,” the words “probe” and “quiz” are favorites with the headline writer, and are often used to excess. Long words like “criticize,” “censure,” “rebuke” give way to shorter ones like “hit,” “rap,” and “score.” The concise but inelegant “nab” is a headline substitute for “arrest.” The verb “peril,” rarely used elsewhere, appears in heads as an equivalent for “imperil” or “endanger,” as in “Shipwreck Perils Many.” The verb “wed” is a convenient short form for “marry.” Words condemned by good usage, such as “to suicide” and “to kill self,” have found a place in the headlines of some newspapers because of their clearness and brevity.

Slang, likewise, on account of its conciseness, novelty, and colloquial character, is not infrequently found in heads, although some newspapers have a rule against its use. If the slang word or phrase is put in quotation marks, it is considered by some newspapers as less objectionable. All that may be said for or against slang in newspapers as a whole, applies with equal force to its use in heads. If the question of good taste is involved in the use of a slang word, the safe course is to avoid it.

Some newspapers have a rule that numerical figures should be put into headlines only when they are absolutely necessary, an injunction that implies a very limited use of them, whereas the general practice clearly is to employ figures when they are the most effective means of conveying the important facts. The advantage of figures is seen in the following heads taken from representative newspapers: