After seeing the alarming headline “TSUNAMI DEAD EXPECTED TO RISE” yesterday, I decided to go back and do a search of some of the wowsers I’ve encountered over the years:
“Supermodel Heidi Klum Engaged to Seal”
“Lynne Cheney and Granddaughters Top National Christmas Tree”
“Rover Sends Photos From Mars”
“Great White Attorney Says Singer Will Seek Immunity”
“Malaysian Addicts Turn to Cow Dung”
“Nurse Gives Birth to Baby After Being Stabbed with Needle”
“Pope Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison”
—Which begs the question, are they trying to be funny, or are they just idiots?
I always assumed that, like every other form of media, it was designed to sell more product. I figure they know exactly what they are doing. Whether it is funny or not is up to you.
It’s not just on the national level. A few years ago (I still have the paper) I read a local news roundup story about a car that was vandalized, as reported by the owner. The headline:
“Man’s nuts loosened.”
Leno’s Headlines bit is the only thing I watch Tonight for these days.
My favourite was in The Link, the independent student newspaper at Concordia University, describing yet another man appointed to an important administration position despite promises to deal with the gender imbalance in the admin:
I have the Columbia Journalism Reivew’s compilation books “Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim” and “Red Tape Holds Up Bridge,” which contain a lot of these—worth looking for, and the CJR has very strict standards as far as “urban legend headlines.”
I love this story on a few levels: MTA driver in hospital after turban patch scuffle…
Turban patch scuffle? Is that an fast-paced Indian folk dance or a fight?
'Mr. Sultana Freedman’s name: Kevin Harrington - I would have guessed ‘NYPD Catholic’ over ‘MTA Sihk’ any day.
The photo by Viorel Florescu: I’ve seen that face before (sans beard, turban and patch), I just can’t put my finger on it.
As Cindy Adams would say: Only in New York kiddies, only in New York.
One of the Texas dioceses of the Episcopal Church had a bishop whose surname was Pope. The man was very High Church and drawn to Catholicism – to which he converted (resigning his see), deconverted, and reconverted over the years. The local paper headlined the news as “Pope Becomes Catholic,” “Pope Leaves Catholic Church,” and “Pope Becomes Catholic Again.”
Probably my favorite headline story of the whole lot is a true one that Barb and I were tangentially connected with. One of our fellow students at the community college we attended our freshman and sophomore years was a young man, Ron, who had attended Wadhams Hall Seminary to train for the priesthood and then had withdrawn from that school, deciding he didn’t have a vocation to the priesthood, and pursued secular studies. After graduation, he took a job as make-up man on the local daily paper, where he made up the sports pages and composed headlines for them.
In the paper’s service area was the small-but-prestigious university located in Canton, county seat of neighboring St. Lawrence County, and named St. Lawrence University. SLU had a pretty good academic program, but in general had poor sports teams – in fact, discontinued intercollegiate football soon afterwards. But at the time Ron was working for the paper, SLU’s lackluster football team was in the process of running up a terrible run of losses. After one game in which they were hopelessly outclassed (there were Pop Warner teams that would outclass them!) and lost miserably, he couldn’t resist temptation any longer, and ran the great headline: St. Lawrence Martyred on Gridiron.
A few weeks or months after September 11, Tampa Bay Online ran a story in which part of the byline had somehow gotten appended to the headline. The result:
Bush Pledges Fight Against Evil AP White House Correspondent
Bwah!! I wouldn’t doubt that some reporters must feel that way sometimes… (I’m not getting political here, just generalizing about Washington and the media in general).
