Transcript Technology and the News Industry

HEADLINE WRITING
Ian Reeves
Tell it and sell it
 Condenses the story into just a handful of words
 Compels the reader to want to read more
 Engages their emotions by making them angry,
sad, amused, incensed etc
Writing news headlines
 Re-read the story. Make sure you know what the
underlying theme is
 Make sure you know what the NEW information
is – it should be in the top line
 Ask yourself what are the key words that must
be in your headline
Writing news headlines
 Use ACTIVE verbs in the present tense – these
lend a sense of immediacy. Passive verbs will not
engage the reader. And active verbs usually use
fewer letters:
New pay deal approved - passive
Bosses boost pay - active
Writing news headlines
 Be as specific as you can:
Auto crash proves fatal - general
4 die as car slams into wall – specific
Writing news headlines
 Write positively where possible:
Nobody hurt in house fire - negative
Family escapes fiery death – positive
Writing news headlines:
grammatical conventions
 No need to use articles like ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘an’ etc
 Verbs can be implied – e.g ‘are’
 Fill all decks of the headline unless house style says
otherwise
 Purists say if letter ‘m’ fits at end of headline, it
doesn’t fit
 Keep it simple: 1 noun, 1 verb will do
 Don’t spell out numbers – use numerals
Writing news headlines:
grammatical conventions
 Never hyphenate words across decks of a
headline
 Don’t use full stops at end of headline
 Use normal rules for capitalisation
(Americans capitalise all headline words)
 Beware of ‘read across’ or ‘read over’
When headlines go bad
Police: crack cocaine found in man’s buttocks
Keegan fills Schmeichel's gap with Seaman
Tiger Woods plays with own balls, Nike says
Drunk gets 9 months in violin case
When headlines go bad
Include your children when baking cookies
Killer sentenced to die for second time in five
years
Red tape holds up new bridge
Woman improving after fatal crash
When headlines go bad
Classic headlines
Classic headlines
Classic headlines