Just in time for a class discussion of headlines on websites, Sunday's News Sentinel offers these examples...
Of course we know what war they're talking about, but those last five words still made me go "ouch"; less so in the newspaper, where the word "war" was the end of the first line of a two-line head.
The wrap on this headline actually worked better on the Web page than on the printed page:
That's because the Web version broke the line after "Kentucky," while the newspaper column broke the line neatly (but ambiguously) in the middle:
Outcry over slaughtering swamps
Kentucky with unwanted horses
Luckily, on the big printed page the large pictures of horses probably saved the blood pressure of any "save our swamps" activists. (For horse lovers, on the other hand, it's a terribly sad story.)
Actually, KnoxNews.com has been doing a lot
better since the first time I took this kind of look at its headlines a couple of years ago, but it still has a design challenge: Its Web page
templates require short one-line headlines, but its newspaper page designs inspire headline
writers to compose long one-liners with short "kickers" that don't kick
well when presented on their own. They just don't have enough
information. Today's examples:
I think the story would get more "clicks" with the more informative second line: "Environmental impact of section of Foothills Parkway under review"
Maybe mystery alone will make some folks click this headline. But it might not be what they expect:
Go ahead, guess before you look at the answer below...
You diamond shoppers, hobbit watchers and wrestling fans may be disappointed by the magical second half of that headline:
"Career epiphany leads woman to 'family business,' role of operating Greatest Show on Earth"
The delayed-lead first sentence is even more intriguing: "Nicole Feld graduated from New York University with a degree in
photography and right away got a shooter's job at People magazine, a
weekly publication with 3.75 million readers and a deep-pocket approach
to acquiring photos of the most beautiful, celebrated and interesting
people." Speaking of delayed leads, I found that story by scanning the Lifestyle/Family page at KnoxNews, skimmed right past the date at the top of the article and thought I was still reading "news" until I saw a reference to the circus coming to town -- last month.
This one didn't even have a second line. I didn't see the story in the paper, but it would have worked nicely with a photo of the TV-star/politician:
People might recognize him from a picture. Google and other search engines wouldn't find the story based on anything in the headline, but they would get there based on the first sentence. The lead was "NASHVILLE - Former Sen. Fred Thompson isn't new to will-he-or-won't-he speculation about seeking public office." (Follow that link to see how some papers are customizing their online-edition headlines to be found more easily by search engines.)
One final challenge to Web presentation: The newspaper "package." The News Sentinel's Sunday business section had a five-story package about downtown condos and downtown living in Knoxville. Roger Harris's "Downtown Die-Hards" lead article, Josh Flory's four related stories and five color photos filled most of pages C1, C4 and C8. The KnoxNews treatment topped the business page (http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/business) on Monday morning, but one of Flory's stories received top play ("Condo offers couple home plus investment" and Harris's story carried the cryptic heading "Downtown die-hards" instead of its longer headline, "Urban lifestyle appeals to variety of dwellers for variety of reasons.") One of the C8 stories, about empty-nesters, also made it to the business page's "Top Stories" box, but the other C1 story, "It's all about location..." was relegated to the top of the "Related stories" box on the other four stories. The box also linked to a pair of videos on the pros and cons of living downtown.
1:46:41 AM 
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