• Home
  • Download PDF
  • Order CD-ROM
  • Order in Print
Final Note
Headline Styles

Journalist 3 & 2 - Introduction to Journalism and other reporting practices
Page Navigation
  133    134    135    136    137  138  139    140    141    142    143  
CHAPTER 9 WRITING  HEADLINES  AND  CUTLINES You have just delivered a story to your associate editor that is arguably the best you have ever written. The lead is first-rate, the body copy is flawless and the ending is textbook However, the story might vanish into obscurity on any  newspaper  page  if  the  accompanying  headline  does not entice or inform the reader. Well-written headlines grab the reader’s attention, convey  clear,  concise  thoughts  and  dress  up  the publication.   Poorly   written   headlines   can   mislead, confuse  and  even  embarrass  the  newspaper  staff, command  and  Navy.  Headlines  must  be  free  of  libelous statements and must not contain violations of security, accuracy,  policy  and  propriety. A reader often decides whether to read a story based on what the headline says. A headline tempts the reader to dig into the story. To do this, you, as a headline writer, must have a sense of what will attract the reader. You must have abroad vocabulary and enough versatility to say  the  same  thing  several  ways  to  make  sure  the headline will fit the space allotted for it on the page. In the following text, we cover the essentials you need  to  become  an  effective  headline  writer. Additionally,  we  examine  the  methods  used  to  write cutlines   (the   explanatory   matter   supplementing photographs) in the final third of this chapter. HEADLINE  EVOLUTION LEARNING   OBJECTIVE:   Evaluate   the evolution of the headline. The  first  American  newspaper  headlines  were nothing more than labels. A large capital letter, called an “initial letter,” may have been used to set off the first paragraph  of  each  story.  Sometimes  the  front-page headlines were one-line labels showing the origin of the news (England, France, Spain). By  the  time  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  American newspapers had made some progress in the art of writing headlines,  but  not  much.  A  full-page  account  of  the battle  between  the   Bon  Homme  Richard   and  HMS Serapis, for example, might have been carried under a 10-point, Old English typeface headline which read as follows: Figure 9-1.—Multidecked headline from the  New  York  Sun following  the  assassination  of  President  Lincoln. Epic Sea Battle An epic sea battle between the Bon Homme Richard and the HMS Serapis was waged on the high seas. . . . During the Civil War, American newspapers began putting  more  information  in  their  headlines,  but  their form was very different from what we are accustomed to  today.  Figure  9-1  shows  a  multidecked  headline 9-1







Western Governors University

Privacy Statement
Press Release
Contact

© Copyright Integrated Publishing, Inc.. All Rights Reserved. Design by Strategico.