If there's one tactic all editors should subscribe to, creating outlandish headlines for the sake of getting viewers is it. Sensationalism rules the roost, so why bother being ethical?
Go on, refute me. Actually, ignore me.
Enough of the stupidity. Part of the reason false headlines are on my mind is because of the column I wrote for an issue of the Daily Illini last week. The headline above my article said "Obama: an 'Everyman' Superman."
I admit that my story probably gave the copy editors a tough time to come up with a quick and snappy headline. But I think there should have been no headline rather than one that didn't grasp the point of my article. I never once said President Obama was an "Everyman," nor did I say he was a Superman. I merely said that he has been trying to portray himself as such in order to appeal to Americans. To reiterate, never once in my column did I take sides with the President; never once in my article did I oppose him.
By saying that Obama IS an everyman superman, the headline took away everything I had been avoiding in my article. I didn't want to alienate any reader with my opinion of the president, since I knew that wouldn't get my point across. Not only that, but taking sides wasn't relevant.
But before a reader read a single word of my column, they already had in his/her mind exactly what I was going to say.
Perhaps I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill... who knows? But I still think it is imperative for headlines to match their stories. Not only for readers, but to appease whiny writers who like to complain even though they got published.
I do see your point that a misleading headline can take away the essence of a story. And it escalates when that story is your own. I think what happened in that situation is that right now, there's a lot of people that adore Obama and are excited to see a change after Bush. So automatically, your copy editor had that in his brain. I know that's wrong, but I'm guessing that's what happened.
ReplyDeleteGoing on the other side, headlines are tough. I copy edit at the DI, (no, I didn't put that headline on your story) and headlines are the biggest headaches copyeditors face. We are instructed to spend no more than 20 minutes on a story and most of that time is devoted to name- checking, grammar and spelling errors, picture captions, and cutting the article to fit the space alloted. This leaves us with about 4 minutes to write a headline. Even worse, design editors don't let us change the size of the font or character spacing like we can in the story. So perhaps someone had a better headline for your story, but it didn't fit. I'm not saying what they chose was right, but I just wanted to play devil's advocate. It's hard to sum up a story in a line of type that is usually around six words. What headline would you have suggested for your story?