HEADLINE

MEANING:
 Headline refers to the title of any news story. It serves as the “show window” of
the news.
 A heading at the top of an article or page in a newspaper or magazine.
 A headline in a newspaper for any written material, sometimes for an illustration
to indicate subject matter, set in larger type than that of the copy and containing
one or more words and lines and often several banks.
 The largest such heading on the front page usually at the top.
 The Headline is the text indicating the nature of the article below it.

Purposes:
1. to give the gist of the news
2. to present the news for rapid survey reading
3. to indicate the relative importance of the news by the amount of display
4. to give a pleasing appearance to the news pages

QUALITIES OF A GOOD HEADLINE

1. Eye-catching – Sounds obvious. You want a headline that will catch people’s
attention first and foremost. But how? Begin with trigger words that have proven
to work. Things like free, sale, and win are good for posts that offer products. For
informational posts, lists such as “top 5” or “how to” tend to catch the eye.
2. Believable – Don’t get so wrapped up in trying to make things eye-popping that
you are untruthful. Nothing will anger a reader like a headline that doesn’t deliver.
Sure it might get someone to click, but they won’t come back!
3. Easy to read – Gimmicks are just that – gimmicks. Stay away from strange fonts,
all caps, and the like. Anything that makes your headline more difficult to read will
cause people to skip over it.
4. Active voice – If you use verbs in your title, keep them active. In other words,
instead of “7 Ways to be a Millionaire,” make it active by saying something like “7
Ways to Generate Millions of Dollars.”
 5. Brief – Long titles make people yawn. Make your headline short but sweet. Brevity
is key, especially since Twitter limits your characters.
6. Accurate – Give your readers a good idea of what they’ll be reading. Ambiguity
is nice in fiction – but this isn’t fiction.

CLASSES ACCORDING TO PURPOSE:

1. Headlines designed to inform.
2. Headlines designed to intrigue

CLASSES OF HEADLINES

KINDS OF HEADLINES:
A. FLUSH-LEFT (NO COUNT) HEAD
-the most common and easiest style.
B. STRICT-COUNT HEADS
1. STREAMER (BANNER, FLAG)– striking boldface head extending across the top
of the page. It denotes news of major importance.
2. CROSSLINE- consists of a single line that usually occupies the full width of the
column or columns occupied by the article.
3. DROPLINE (STEPLINE)-is commonly used in single-column widths. 4.
HANGING INDENTION-is made up of several lines, the first line occupying the full column
width and each successive line is indented a like distance at the left.
5. PYRAMID (INVERTED PYRAMID)- is always used in combination with other head
units.
6. FLUSHLINE-2 more equal lines reaching both the left and right column rules.
7. UMBRELLA (SKYLINE)-a special name for the streamer that appears at the very
top of the page above even the name of the paper.
8. BINDER-a streamer at the top of an inside page.
BOXED HEAD-is surrounded by borders (rules) on 4 sides to give it prominence. It
is called modified box head when there are less than 4 sides with rules.
C. OTHER KINDS
1. JUMP HEAD (RUN-OVER HEAD)- the title of a story that has been jumped. It is followed
by the words “Continued from p…” or the like.
2. SUBHEAD-a short title of a portion of a news story.
3. TAGLINE-a short single line placed above the main head.
A. TEASER (KICKER)-serves to intrigue rather than to inform.
B. SPEAKER’S NAME
C. CLASSIFIER
FOLO HEAD-used on news related to the main story and run on the same column
under the main headline.

FEATURE HEADLINES:
The headline of a feature story does not aim to give the gist of the story but to advertise
the material. Therefore, an elaborate headline is not suitable, for features are usually
concerned with simple subjects.