The headlines that shouldn't be
Sunday, November 23, 2008
By Austin Bates
As I scanned the headlines concerning news behind the news, I came across one very short, very simple post that pointed out something very simple about a fairly simple headline: was anyone thinking about this before it was printed? The headline in question read "Ruler can't measure Johnson's impact."
Now, I'm sure that more than a few people will read that headline and think nothing of it, and when they see the snickers around them, might honestly shrug their shoulders in confusion. But chances are that the majority of those who read the headline will instantly think of something quite different and involuntarily burst into laughter at a very poorly worded headline.
In all reality, badly worded headlines of that kind of magnitude are fairly rare. Yet enough crop up from time to time for comedians to make a living off of them. Case in point, Jay Leno's "headlines" skit that he performs every Monday night on "The Tonight Show".
My point in all of this is this: how do headlines like these make it to final print without somebody stopping it and saying, "Wait a minute, you think this is appropriate?" All they would really need to do is show the headline to a young adult, and if the headline elicits a snicker or a laugh out of them when it wasn't supposed to, you know you wrote something the wrong way. In the end, the publisher of said headline could avoid quite a bit of embarrassment.
