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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, May 18, 2003

AFTER DEADLINE
Postwar headlines must also sing

By Brad Lendon
Advertiser News Editor

The war is over, and my job is harder.

Two weeks ago Saturday was the first time since the cruise missiles started flying that there was nothing about the war in Iraq on the front page of The Advertiser.

Sure, we've had some Iraq-related stories hit the front page since, but those have had headlines like "5 Iraqi exiles likely to join ruling body."

Important? Probably. A must-read? Not even close.

Nothing like those headlines in late March and early April:

"U.S. troops storm halfway to Baghdad"

"U.S. blazes through Iraq's best troops"

"Hundreds of Iraqis killed in fighting at airport"

Those headlines tell you that those are stories you have to read.

I have to make sure every news story has a headline that makes you want to read it. As news editor, I lead a team of 33 people responsible for those headlines.

If our team of editors at The Advertiser doesn't write headlines that make you want to read the stories beneath them, it means a whole lot of reporters — not to mention the folks running the presses and driving the delivery trucks — have wasted a lot of time.

And we know readers don't have time to waste. Studies tell us a reader averages about 22 minutes a day with the morning newspaper. In those 22 minutes, headline writers have to make you stop on a story and give you enough facts in five to 10 words to get you to read it.

Several days ago, a headline writer had six words — "Core of campaign finance law upheld" — to tell you about a complex court decision that was 1,700 pages long.

Did you read that story? Maybe not. It's what some in the newsroom call "dull but important." We think you should know about it, but we really don't want to read it ourselves.

So maybe you didn't read the story. But did your eye stop on that front-page headline? If it did, and even if that was all you needed to know, the copy editor did a good job. More than 1,700 pages of legalese distilled into six words that told the story enough so that you could say, "Yes, I remember that."

"Shareholder's step may stall takeover"

That story was on Page One recently. Did you read it? Do you know from those five words what that story was about?

I didn't, so we may have let you down on this one. The story was about the Central Pacific Bank bid to buy City Bank.

"Outgoing Army chief's plans unclear"

That was a Page One headline last Sunday. The story was about what Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Shinseki might be doing after he retires. I approved that headline, and the next morning I hated it. "Unclear" is a bad headline word.

If we're not making things clear for you, why would you want to spend time with our stories?

Our job is to inform.

So that's why the job's more difficult.

The postwar stories aren't life and death, war and peace, good vs. evil. And they don't take those strong words like "blazes" and "storms."

They aren't life and death. Unless you're a Makaha peacock — "Some oppose plan to kill dozens" (two weeks ago on the problem of noisy birds).

They're more simple — "Father hammers away for free" (a recent Page One on volunteer work at a school).

Our task is to reflect our average daily lives in five to 10 words.

How do we do it?

I think one of our editors may have gotten it just right in a recent Monday paper with this business headline:

"Yo, keep it simple before the beep"