Headlines
From USAToday.com:
Just another championship: Celebrations in Boston muted
Patriot fans go wild in Boston
These two stories were both on the homepage of USAToday.com and refer to the New England Patriots winning the Super Bowl for the third time in four years. The headlines themselves completely contradict each other, while the actual articles do not.
The first article focuses on the fan deaths that occurred after both the Patriots won the Super Bowl and the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004. The story focuses on the fact there were only two incidents that lead to arrests in Boston after the Patriot’s win this time around, because of an increased police presence in response to the deaths of two fans celebrating the previous wins. From the headline alone, the reader gets the feeling that the celebration intensity was decreased in Boston because of all the success their professional sports teams have been having lately (4 major championships in 4 years). After reading the story, especially interviews with fans in Boston, one realizes that the reason that the celebrations are so muted is because of an increased police presence in wake of the deaths that occurred at previous celebrations. This is best illustrated by the closing quote of a Patriots fan:
Charles Vasco, 18, a student at Northeastern University, and many of his fellow students decided before the game against venturing into the streets.
"The police don't seem to be messing around this time," he said.
A better headline would be:
Increased police presence mutes Super Bowl celebration
The second article focuses on fan reactions at Boston-area bars to the Patriot’s win, and is really nothing more than a reporter getting seemingly drunk fan reactions to their team’s win. The fans are not “going wild,” but just saying how great their team is and how they’ve built a dynasty by winning past 3 out of 4 years. The main problem with this headline is that it contradicts the bigger story listed at the top of the homepage and causes the reader to click on both links to find out the whole story.
A better headline would be:
Patriot fan reactions to team’s championship win
From CNN.com:
Soldier demoted for mud wrestling
This story did not seem to make sense to me until I actually opened the link. It may be sexist to say, but when I see the word “soldier” I automatically think of men. The soldier in this article is a 19-year old female, and was demoted for nude mud wrestling in front of the 105th Military Police Battalion. If I was writing the headline for this story, I’d try to catch more attention by adding two simple descriptors:
Female soldier demoted for nude mud wrestling
I wonder how many more hits that would bring in?
posted by Steve McGregor @ 1:58 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
steven,
good use of lists in the usa today article fix. in fact, i'd read those lists and probably little else. the article is far too long for reading online.
good choice of model web site. maybe iowa IS heaven.
on the headlines, it's very unclear, at least to me, which is the original and which is the fix. in the first, for example, if the original is fans muted, is the fix that it should say they went wild? i'm confused, since they seem to be opposites.
i did catch the female soldier thing. you're right, the gender here is important. news media are reluctant to ever put "female" because they never state "male." it's arguable even in this case. but your point is valid: for male readers at least, the gender here would likely be a huge prompt in driving readership.
to help with the display, use the HTML tags prompted in the "comment section of blogger.
i would reproduce them here but blogger would think i'm tring to code my own entry, which i wouldn't be.
they are in the stud book as well
I like your fix on the mud wrestling headline. Great eye; I know adding "female" to the mud wrestling headline would draw more hits/clicks. Good job.
Thanks for the input, I added the HTML tags and hopefully that helps to clear up the issues on the headlines. The first two headlines in bold appeared on the same front page (the problem is that they totally contradict each other). I give examples of the fixes in bold further down on the post.
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