The Writing of News / A Handbook with Chapters on Newspaper Correspondence and Copy Reading

by Charles G. Ross

THE COPY READER’S SCHEDULE

On a printed form the copy reader keeps a record of all the stories he handles, giving the name of the writer, the style of head, the estimated number of words and the time. A sample entry would be: “Jones—Fire—No. 4—250—8:30,” meaning that Jones, a reporter, wrote a 250-word fire story, which the copy reader sent to the printer, with a No. 4 head, at 8:30 o’clock. Such a record enables the editor at any time to trace an offending item to its source.

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CHAPTER XIII
WRITING THE HEAD

The art of arts, the glory of expression, and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity—nothing can make up for excess or for the lack of definiteness.—Walt Whitman.

Newspapers in Greeley’s day were judged by their editorials; to-day they are judged in large measure by their headlines. Big type is associated in our minds with the sensational. The paper that habitually uses scare heads is put down as yellow, while the paper with subdued heads is regarded as conservative in its policies. The distinction does not always hold good: a newspaper with conservative heads may be essentially yellower in its treatment of news than one which spreads a banner across the top of the first page to catch the eye of the possible buyer on the street. But as a rule it may safely be said that the style of heads mirrors in a general way the newspaper’s character. It would be going too far, of course, to assert that yellowness is in direct proportion to the size of the headlines, but it is true in the main that small head letter stands for conservatism and glaring type for so-called yellowness, with the average American newspaper in the middle ground.

Whether or not headlines are an index to news policy, they are one of the most important features of the modern newspaper. Properly written, they enable the busy reader to grasp quickly all the essential facts of the day’s news. The head is nothing more nor less than the story in tabloid form. (See [Figure 1].) In this it differs radically from the title of a book or a play, which merely suggests the theme. The newspaper head is written to pique and gratify curiosity at the same time.