The art of headlining is in a coma
OUT OF PRINT
Binoo K John
The Hoot begins a new column on the print media
The New York Post’s desk editor, the late Vincent Musetto, who gave the headline "Headless Body in Topless Bar” in 1983 must be the only desk editor (as opposed to a reporter) who will be remembered for putting together five words. “It just came to me. I loved it,” is what Musetto had to say about his immortal headline.
Genius and heroism are attached only to the reporter who, according to popular perception, braves bullets and anarchists to bring you the story. The worldwide eulogies that have been pouring in for Musetto, who died on June 9, must offer some consolation to subeditors and news editors who perform the thankless silent, backend job of producing a newspaper out of mounds of garbage.
What’s in a headline that makes us smirk or chuckle or break out in wondrous joy? First the underlying humour, then the cattiness, then the put-down, the taunting tone, and oh, the pun.
Searching for a headline, even if it has to contain the word headless, is a tortuous task. Headlining is a daily nightmare, not just because it has to be thought up around midnight, but it has to wrap the story within its narrow confines. And beyond that it has to have a sense of underlying humour or at least a chuckle-inducing pun. The very fact that few headings have been able to outgun the “Headless body…” all these years is in itself an indication of the struggle involved.
“Nothing gives me greater satisfaction than watching someone thumbing through The Post on the subway and breaking into a smile, almost on cue, when he or she turns a page and is immediately tickled by one of the heads. That’s my silent fist-pump “Yes’ Moment, “Robert Walsh, New York Post Copy Desk, is quoted as saying in a book on headings brought out by the paper.
Now 30 years after Musetto gave the classic heading, the fate of the newspaper headline is much the worse. As an attention-grabber and a flag, the headline is losing its importance in this visual age. Thanks to the digital revolution the clever heading has been replaced by the’ flash’, the quick scroll or flyer by TV channels who, after scrolling a heading like, say, “Jihadi held in Srinagar”, set out to proclaim that they broke the story first.
It is also because leading tabloids like the Daily Mirror of the UK (one of the most popular news websites in the world) have moved into long descriptive headings in the belief that the heading has to have the full story or the modern impatient reader will move on and turn to his phone for the latest story. Thus we have in the Daily Mail this descriptive heading which almost replaces the story intro: “Braless Kris Jenner, 59, wears tape on cleavage to avoid spilling out of her very low-cut mini dress in Paris”.
“In the era of optimizing headlines for social media sharing and search engines, the default option is often to include a celebrity or at least a well-known name,” John Cassidy writes in the New Yorker. In the search for a ‘searchable word’ the headline has been forgotten. Note that in the Daily Mirror heading the celebrity’s name is mentioned.
Along with such digital necessities, humour and irony have been thrown out of the window. Like portals and news agency headers, newspapers too have given up the struggle for a well thought-out heading while concentrating on headings that will show up in search engines.
A scan of page one of some Delhi papers reveals the lack of effort that goes into headlines by newspapers which, in any case, are willing prisoners of the cliché. Every time Parliament is in session, we know that “pandemonium” will follow.
A pick of some of the most staid recent headings:
1. “Bridging the govt-NGO divide” (Mint). A classic Indian heading, flat and cliché ridden which says nothing. On any given day, various things and entities are “bridged” but such bridging only increases the paper’s divide with the reader.
2. ‘Women too drink, drive, Mumbai cops realise’ (Indian Express). As an announcement of Mumbai police efficiency, there is nothing to beat this tired heading, where the subeditor tried to be funny and half-way through gave up.
3. To the Economic Times goes the credit for this too-clever-by-half heading: “Do you have it in you to start up?” an across-the-page screamer heading for a tech story on start ups which opens itself up to various interpretations and innuendos.
The many reasons why Indian newspapers have neglected the art of headline-making include the lack of interest of the chief editor in the making of a page, the lack of talent of course, the dearth of humour and irony in our national discourse, and a hidden fear that a funny, wacky heading may result in the Vishwa Hindu Parishad landing up at the doors of the office the next day for a bit of moral policing.
This is also the reason why a tabloid heading (which can often work well ) is looked down upon in India where journalism has fallen into a cleft of self- imposed morality and a fear of the sensational, (leave that to television!) where even the bizarre story is converted into a bore. So there is no chance of a “Nut screws and bolts” heading (about a rapist who vanished) in Indian papers.
Legendary Post editor Steve Dunleavy had this to say about the Musetto heading: “How do you tell a sensational story other than sensationally? What should it say? Decapitated cerebellum in licensed premises, wherein ladies baring mammaries have been seen, to wit, performing acts counter to social mores? I don’t think so.”
But many Indian editors think so and if the 1983 incident of a murder and decapitation had happened in a Delhi bar, some papers here would have gone with: “Man killed, head cut off ” or “Cops find one head in bar, search on for body” or “Man dies after head detached”
To glue the head to the body text is a task headliners need to work on.
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