Hed of the Young Century

Bumfketeer · **Posted:** Fri Jan 03, 2003 8:23 pm

Record (Troy, N.Y.), front page, 1/02...story about first baby of the new year in region; couple's name is Wang.Couple
starts new
year with
a Wang
Page one.

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Fri Jan 03, 2003 10:36 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Bumfketeer:
Record (Troy, N.Y.), front page, 1/02...story about first baby of the new year in region; couple's name is Wang.Couple
starts new
year with
a Wang
<hr></blockquote>It's getting to be a habit with them.

Bakelite · **Posted:** Fri Jan 03, 2003 11:12 pm

''New Wang Would Be Much Smaller''[ January 04, 2003: Message edited by: Dean Betz ]

Bumfketeer · **Posted:** Fri Jan 03, 2003 11:45 pm

I was hoping you would see this one, Dean...:-)

Powderhorn · **Posted:** Mon Jan 06, 2003 6:01 am

Please tell me they gave the length and weight of said Wang in the story ...

jmcg · **Posted:** Mon Jan 06, 2003 8:50 pm

Nothing terribly inspired about that hed,
but nothing wrong with it, either. The Wangs
had a kid. That's all.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Mon Jan 06, 2003 10:01 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by jmcg:
Nothing terribly inspired about that hed,
but nothing wrong with it, either. The Wangs
had a kid. That's all.<hr></blockquote>"Nothing wrong with it"?Rule No. 6: NEVER use anyone's name for wordplay.

Guest · **Posted:** Mon Jan 06, 2003 10:16 pm

From which rulebook are you quoting?

Craig Lancaster · **Posted:** Mon Jan 06, 2003 11:05 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by blanp:
Rule No. 6: NEVER use anyone's name for wordplay.<hr></blockquote>Let us not forget Subsection A of Rule No. 6:"Unless, of course, you're writing a headline for the sports section"

tim · **Posted:** Mon Jan 06, 2003 11:35 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Craig Lancaster:
Let us not forget Subsection A of Rule No. 6:"Unless, of course, you're writing a headline for the sports section"<hr></blockquote>Good God I hope you're kidding. The Yao Ming "Dynasty?" Please. I have read and heard that so many times I have blood coming from my eyes and ears. It isn't clever and neither was the Wang headline, in sports or elsewhere.

Craig Lancaster · **Posted:** Mon Jan 06, 2003 11:47 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Tim Hathcock:
Good God I hope you're kidding. <hr></blockquote>Yes, I'm kidding. Relax.My point: The sports guys write name-wordplay headlines as if doing so is a requirement of the job.[ January 06, 2003: Message edited by: Craig Lancaster ]

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Tue Jan 07, 2003 12:06 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Craig Lancaster:
"Unless, of course, you're writing a headline for the sports section"<hr></blockquote>There is no exception to the rule.

Guest · **Posted:** Tue Jan 07, 2003 12:19 am

Again ... whose rule?

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Tue Jan 07, 2003 12:21 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Jim Thomsen:
Again ... whose rule?<hr></blockquote>Generally accepted best practices, often violated. But for our purposes: My rule.[ January 07, 2003: Message edited by: blanp ]

Guest · **Posted:** Tue Jan 07, 2003 1:02 am

I'd really like to read Rules 1-5, and 7 and beyond ....

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Tue Jan 07, 2003 1:07 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Jim Thomsen:
I'd really like to read Rules 1-5, and 7 and beyond ....<hr></blockquote>Read the 1,655 previous posts on this board and the 2,000 archived posts at Yahoo Groups and you'll get a general idea.

Bumfketeer · **Posted:** Tue Jan 07, 2003 1:12 am

The most egregious, horrible example of a hed based on a name pun came from the sports section at my paper...for one edition.The story was about a guy who happened to be black, and whose name happened to be Scott. After much thought about several choices, this young man attended a certain college and did well on the football field. I don't recall the college; let's call it Cornell. Paper comes up. first edition sports hed:Cornell doesn't dread Scott decisionAfter I changed my coffee-stained shirt (I was the news desk slot), I went to the sports slot (in technical violation of my "authority," as it were) and said the hed was not acceptable on any level. When he balked, I asked him if he knew what the Dred Scott Decision was, and was saddened when he replied "Wasn't it something about freeing the slaves?" (Obviously, if it were the hed still would have been outrageous).After I told him what the Dred Scott Decision was, he agreed to change it.Great.

Craig Lancaster · **Posted:** Tue Jan 07, 2003 1:21 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Bumfketeer:
After I told him what the Dred Scott Decision was, he agreed to change it.Great.<hr></blockquote>Sheesh. That's horrid.I'll say this about the sports desk (where I've happily hung my hat for more than 10 years):That group of copy editors can process more copy on deadline -- and relatively cleanly -- than any other desk at most newspapers. It's part of the job.But there's a pretty big blind spot when it comes to word play and headlines. I've tried to deliver a consistent message on my desk that the truly inspired headlines are welcome but that if one doesn't come quickly, don't force it. I'd choose a section full of clear, precise subject-verb-object headlines over a section with even one "clever" headline that misfires.As so many of them do.

Bumfketeer · **Posted:** Tue Jan 07, 2003 1:27 am

Craig, keep up the good work.

Guest · **Posted:** Tue Jan 07, 2003 2:27 am

Craig, I think I can explain why that happens from my perspective. I came up as a sportswriter/editor, and spent about half my career on the sports desk. In my junior year of college, I decided I wanted to pursue a summer sporstwriting internship for The Seattle Times, so all my writing for the year was carefully patterned after the style shown day after day in The Times' sports pages -- smug, glib, smart-assed, full of puns and puerile wordplay. That's exactly what the 21-year-old version of me thought was the coolest thing on earth to emulate -- basically the sportswriting version of post-punk music. And so I can remember the day I was notified that I'd beaten out more than 150 candidates for the internship in the summer of 1987, and what I was told was the reason: "Your writing is smart, fresh and has a lot of attitude." Those were the words, verbatim.In retrospect, I see now that that smug, smart-assed, puerile wordplay sportswriting comes primarily from sportswriters who have nothing but contempt for the athletes they cover ... and even hate them.

Rio · **Posted:** Tue Jan 07, 2003 2:44 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by former co-worker Craig Lancaster:I've tried to deliver a consistent message on my desk that the truly inspired headlines are welcome but that if one doesn't come quickly, don't force it. I'd choose a section full of clear, precise subject-verb-object headlines over a section with even one "clever" headline that misfires.<hr></blockquote>No wonder you left the Anchorage Daily News. :D

gullyj · **Posted:** Tue Jan 07, 2003 4:04 pm

This story is probably too good to be true but it still makes the rounds many decades later.Two night editors were finishing up the Christmas Eve edition of a Winnipeg, Manitoba newspaper and were working on a headline for the front page skyline story.It concerned a guy named Oliver who came home drunk. His outraged wife killed and dismembered him with a butcher's knife.The headline was:She decked the halls with balls of Ollie.Unfortunately, it never made print. The editors apparently took two steps out the door on their way to last call at the Winnipeg Press Club when they were overcome by fear and raced back inside to replace the headline with something more mundane.

pzicari · **Posted:** Tue Jan 07, 2003 6:19 pm

All in a day's reading (that I had nothing to do with writing):A New Year's diet
isn't a piece of cake Shovel, shovel
toil and trouble
for back, heart Jet hits the skids; passenger hits the road
So which ones do YOU think ran off the runway?

Powderhorn · **Posted:** Wed Jan 08, 2003 4:36 am

For reasons that escape me, I feel compelled to own up to my single egregious contribution to sports heds.My third week on the job as an editor in any capacity (on the college paper, of course) there came to my page a story about a soccer player whose "beating the odds" tale had to do with a condition he had in which his heart leaked.The sports ed passed along this story with the hed of "Braveheart" -- which I dismissed out of hand and told him was too clever by half (this was in 1998 when the movie could still be found at any hour of the day on one of the HBO channels.)He told me (and I'm sure he regretted it for at least a week), "Well, if you can come up with something better, go ahead and use it." I tried my best for an hour or so, and couldn't come up with anything, so I threw a placeholder hed in (which I was sure would *not* be allowed to run).It was at about 2:30 the next morning that one of the editors I was hanging out with after we'd put the paper to bed suddenly got a grave expression on her face."We didn't actually run 'My Leaking Heart' -- did we?"We did. And I've never seen such a profusely apologetic correction. And I've also never used anything aside from "hed goes here" since.

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Wed Jan 08, 2003 12:04 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by canuck:
The headline was:She decked the halls with balls of Ollie.<hr></blockquote>Hey, shouldn't that be:She allegedly decked the halls with balls of Ollie.[ January 08, 2003: Message edited by: ADKbrown ]

1105 · **Joined:** Sun Jan 19, 2003 1:01 am **Posts:** 2

It was Christmas.
Her name was Molly. His name was Oliver. Their last name was Holly.Hed: Molly decks halls with balls of Holly
Deck: She sure made Oliver twistI'd tell you the writer's name, but it was a long time ago and all lead under the turtle.

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