Headlines, news and accidental naughtiness

BY NICK BARNETT, STUFF OPINION EDITOR

One of the unsung parts of journalism is headline writing. It's basic to making print and online journalism work for readers, and we at Stuff do an awful lot of it.

I couldn't tell you exactly how many headlines a Stuff web-editor writes in a day - none of us has the time to make a count. But one of my colleagues estimates she writes or tweaks up to 40 a day. In my newspaper days, I'd write up to 30 headlines from scratch, while also editing the stories.

It's a craft and an art, headline writing. I've been doing it for 27 years, and figure I've written about 80,000 headlines in that time.

Very few of them deserve to be remembered, because most, probably 95 per cent, are doing a plain, serviceable job.

But it's a crucial job. A news headline is meant to sum up the news story, so that the reader isn't forced to read further to untangle what's happening. This means the headline has to embody the story's main points without under- or overstating things, omitting anything crucial, inserting the journalist's dreaded "editorialising" - or creating an ambiguity that might leave readers scratching their heads or sniggering over a double-entendre.

In a newspaper, you have to achieve all those things while making the headline's words fit a fearsomely limited space. You also (if you're going to do it well) have to pay attention to the typographical shape of the headline and the phrasing and grouping of the words that make it up.

Here on Stuff we have a little more space than most newspapers have, but we have our own challenges. Often, a story will need several headlines to fit different uses, and sometimes the character count is pretty tough - boiling down a complex news story to 20 characters and keeping it comprehensible is not simple.

And a unique aspect of writing headlines for Stuff or any online site is that you have to keep it easy to find in search engines. For example, keeping as many names and places mentioned will help the story's searchability.

Here's an example of taking a feature-style headline and using our space and search engine awareness to make it work online: the Dominion Post put the headline Extrasensory perceptions on a column; Stuff changed it to Why psychics should butt out of the Aisling Symes case.

Maybe I've made headline writing sound like a chore, and certainly it's harder than many people might think. But it's also fun. Every now and then you get a chance to play with the words, wink at the readers, or do a bit of punning. You have to choose the right story, of course, and make sure your joke or pun is worth making.

Every editor's nightmare, though, is to insert an unintended meaning in a headline.

The worst ambiguity to insert - though often the funniest - is a sexual innuendo. On the first day of my first subediting job, I was handed a crisp memo that stated "sexual innuendo has no place in [the stately newspaper that employed me]".

This made me paranoid. I'd lost the schoolboy's flair for seeing sexual innuendo in everything, and was slow to get it back as newspaper work required. I laboured over my very first headline, a 14pt line on a filler: Seaman discharged.

So let's get on to favourite entertaining headlines. I've got several categories of them:

Wordplay:

No knobby bobby keeps jobby  - a story about a sex-change policeman turned policewoman who was fired but reinstated by the courts.

Stay and try or jump and fry - when oilrig workers had to jump in the sea to escape a fire.

Super Cally go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious - when Inverness Caledonian Thistle thrashed Celtic in a football game.

Ground control for major toms - for a garden page story on growing tomatoes.

Stating the obvious:

Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Experts Say

No chance of sex, says lawyer

Desperate criminals may kill

Ambiguity, unintended:

Schoolgirl has Thatcher's ear

Man sought for indecent acts

Prostitutes appeal to Pope

Dead man seen at party

Stolen Painting Found by Tree

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks

Crack found in man's buttocks

Ship with 79 sinks

Sheer dopiness:

Tennis kicks off tomorrow

Man whistles on way home, only to die

We all love dud or brilliant headlines. Please leave a comment and share yours.