Goderich Signal Star, 2011-08-17, Page 17nal Star • Wednesday, August 17, 2011
illating titles grab readers where it counts
.red in the American newspaper
v, headline writer Vincent
) retired recently after 40 years
'w York Post.
eas the New York Times strives
once and excellence in news
g, the New York Post follows the
ds, it leads" strategy of journal-
ading the New York Times, you
erne across a headline like
Mercifully Misses Planet Earth.
Musetto's 1998 New York Post
e on Just such an event was:
r Asteroid Goodbye!'
tto known as `the •master of
AIMS WOWS a Circus
William Thomas
screaming headlines' is most fatuous for
the caption he created for a mob story in
which a decapitated body was found in a
seedy New York bar. His title: "Headless
Body In'Ibpless Bar." Brilliant in its brev-
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Ity, who can resist reading further.
Interviewed about his career, Musetto
claimed writing headlines that grab the
reader is about short, powerful, push-
button words like zap, zip and zonk.
'Blaze' Is good he says, but 'fire' is shorter.
His personal favourite was the title he
gave to a story about a woman's last wish
to go to the electric chair in pajamas
rather than a prison jumpsuit: "Granny
Executed In Her Pink Pajamas"
Remembe4 these are headlines of fac-
tual stories in the main street press not
like the trashy tabloid titles that leer at you
from the supermarket checkout counter;
e t55th
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Suphv is Oros, Millirem mist 12 Ms.
Not like "Identical Twin Makes
Mistake, Kills Brother In Sui-
cide Attempt." Not like "Man
With Four Arms Makes For-
tune As Deodorant Tester."
Not like "Baby Born Talking
Tells Dad: You're Not My Real
Father;"
I was once a magazine edi-
tor and my assistant, Caroline
Wilson came across a story
about a midget tea reader in
Los Angeles who disappeared
after scamming a lot of clients
out of a lot of money. We ran
the item on our `Incredible
But True' page. Carolina's
brilliant headline: "Srnall
MediumAt Large She should
have won some sort of award.
In a highly competitive
industry with ten or more
options on the rack a good
headline writer can sway.
newspaper buyers with a
quick and catchy title. After
the Republicans dragged Pres-
ident Bill Clinton through
salacious impeachment pro-
ceedings they knew they
couldn't win, the News of New
York broke the verdict: "Close
But No Ciga,d"
After rich bitch and publi-
cist
ubli-cist to the stars Lizzie Grub-
man drove her car into a
crowd of what she called
"white trash" injuring dozens,
the News punned the sen-
tencing "From A Big House
lb The Big House'
Headline aeators adhere to
the lethal weapon of humour
writing - brevity is the .soul of
wit.
Amine of the very best head-
lines ever written could also
top the list of the very worst.
A decade ago, an Australian
newspaper ran a story about
the Hong Kong police who
were vehemently denying a
report in Japan's Nichi Nichi
Shhnbun newspaper that they
had fired soft -nosed bullets
into a crowd of rioters. The
headline; "Hong Kong Pooh-
PP�000hs Nichi Nichi Dum-
Dums I'
Take your pick. The line
between terrific and terr*See is
a fine.
Similarly, the headline in
California's entertainment
newspaper Variety, bemoan-
ing the disinterest in rural
movies by the farming crowd
read: "Socks Nix Hick Pix"
Nowhere in the world has
the frenzy to market newspa-
pers by sheer sensationalism
been greater than hi Britain.
From Canada's Lord Beaver-
brook to Rupert Murdoch,
Fleet Street media barons
have broken trust, laws and
knuckles to outsell the other
guy's rag.
Oddly enough, although the
Brits' expectations of truth in
media are low, sales of daily
newspaper have remained
high for centuries. One such
paper, starving for attention
ran a very sketchy story under
the eye-popping headline:
"Sixty Horses Wedged In
Chimney." Details are still to
follow.
Twenty-seven years ago, the
wonderfully acerbic column-
ist American Mike Royko
encapsulated the spreading
scandal Rupert Murdoch now
finds himself drowning in.
When Rupert bought the Chi-
cago Sun -Times, Royko
resigned with, the words: "No
self: respecting fish would be
wrapped in a Murdoch
newspaper;'"
The British Sun made no
bones about their choice for
prime minister on the very
day of the election with the
headline: If Kinnock Wins
Today Will The Last Person To
Leave Britain Please Turn Out
The_Lights."
Famous for headlines that
elicit either a gasp or a : e
The Sun ran the following.
headline over the story of
George Michael being caught
exposing himself in a public
washroom: "Zip Me Up
Before You Go Go"
More recently, The Sun in
Britain put the wedding of
superstar Elton John to David
Furnish on the front page and
under the photo of the two
smiling newlyweds they ran
the .headline: "Elton Takes
David Up The Aisle!
Itwould be very dil%.t not
to read deeper into The Sun
story in which the beautiful
girlfriend of a British comic
claimed "Freddie Starr .Me
My Hamstet" Apparently he
did, in a sandwich.
When Ike Turner died at
age 76 after subjecting the still
beautiful and very much alive
Tina Turner to physical
assaults, The Sun ran the
headline: "Ike Turner Beats
Tina To Death!' (He, getting
there first of course.)
To my mind, the best/worst
headline ever put into print
was from an English-spealdng
Chinese newspaper that ran a
story about an escapee from a
mentalinstitution who broke
into a laundry and sexually
assaulted several laundresses
before fleeing. The title at the
top of the story: "Nut Screws
Washers And Bolts."
Love 'em or hate 'em - the
best and worst headlines do
their job well. In a disinter-
ested and distracted world,
they grab our full attention.