Cuarrer Ning HEA DLINES—WRITING AND STYLE je on that heads a report highlighting the new itle which comes at the top of a story and acts as an inducement to read the news in detail down below. Look at any newspaper page, and you will find several headlines prayed all over, capping news items and telling the reader what they are all about. Seldom does a story appear without any headline. It is the normal practice that every report must carry & headline. Still there may be one or two newspapers here and there in the world which sometimes take in fillers without titles. The Statesman in Calcutta uses ‘headless’ fillers, but other papers of the city do take headlines even over the shorts. Anything that is headless does not look good ; so is the case with the fillers without headlines. Even then the headline js not just an ornament adorning the news report. Is is wrong to treat the headline as an ornamental decoy for the reader. Neither is it an expendable showpiece having little to do for him. Contrarily, the headline is vital, an essential part of a story that gives the news, and the reader gets first an opportu- nity to look at it and receive the message. The headline being ‘a major source of information’, as Bruce Westley (News Editing, Ch 9, p 113) has put it, must be so catchy and inviting as to attract the roving eye and hold it for a moment before it moves deep into the matter. In other words, the headline is an advertisement for the news most alluring and often effective. According to Edmund C. Arnold (Modern Newspaper Design, Ch 5, pp 108-109), ‘a major fumnetign of the headline is to lure’ the reader into the story, It is, in an jnelegant but accurate analogy, the bait, : eeaeee Tees the Beeline s_ = while the body type and once the reader takes the bait bait aa “he will be in the wonderland of news. od headline is that it states ‘plainly- oe ib RWS EDITING IN THEORY AND PRACTICE *, according to Westley. The What the story pyar eam | aed y 5 oak Story : — — to stop and read in plenty it wil] sell ~ 2 phere headline writing is a demanding task Of the newsdesk, posing a challenge which the sub-editors face with ‘ntelligence and skill, \ headline is good when it is read and its Message received “Come glance, The reader does not have much time to Waste om a headline, Nor can the sub afford much time in conjuring up the headline idea. He works fast. Any delay on his Part will upset the production schedule. But this does not mean that the sub can feed a poor headline into the news pipeline, Fast work even does not imply headline writing in haste, Write it after reading the story and after working on copy. Jot down the point that can be highlighted in the headline, The main risk in Producing a headline before completing the work on copy is that the sub may miss the news point or the headline may be misleading. ; A terse sentence will do for a headline. Take the essence of news in a few telling words. Only then you can catch the 4 reader on the wing. Arnold (p 92) thinks a headline ‘is a sales- man’. It sells the news, as it tells the news. ‘The creativity t of the headwriter is paramount’ and the creative faculty seems. to stand or fall on his salesmanship. an Use telling words. Remember that every word counts. Weight it and use the same with care. Get a headline that is immediately meaningful. And for this there is little scope for any wordy fanfare. Nor is there any space for literary flair. David Wainwright (Journalism Made Simple, Ch 5, pp 132-133) wants the headline to be brisk and attractive. Itemust ‘give the guts of the story’, » Brisk headlines are not wordy ; aci headlines are newsy ; and clear ideas help. ¢ to obscurity and obscruity , r ? eas and words make 13) adds: ‘Where Tewspaper seems ne goes unerringly Mewspaper comesae jeadline is immediately . 7 2 hi * 1 5 i The sub will thus have to a if it iy P pre go put the news across Within .ut® the telegr aphic eth always given. As the words in . ae =the gt gpace because letter faces are bi than ine comsurne ” ‘ould always make efforts to accommodate ;) YPES the al a ed ACR Patanjal Sethi (Professional —— the «pp 89-90) says that te legraphic words help to = » Ch ism meaning in a restricted space’. Press ‘the f Good vocabulary helps. But what helps most is the nbs ql in using accurate, intelligible and Vigorous words, accuracy is needed to state the content rightly. Intelligibility evokes ready response from the reader. And vigour is achieved when key words with strong verbs are used. When all these in- gedients are absent the headline will be a damp squib. Sometimes the headline does not inform but tempt. Words in such cases are not telling. The news is not told straight- away. The reader takes a glance at it but does not get the news at once. He is kept guessing about what it is all about, The words that the headwriter uses are tempting. Such head- lines are called teasers because they tease the reader into going through the story. A soft news story may have a teaser, but in most feature items such tempting headlines appear. Arnold (p 92) has talked of two kinds of headline, one definitive and the other connotative. The definitive headline is generally a summary headline which ‘boils the gist of the story in a terse sentence’. But the connotative headline ‘is a teaser, piquing the curiosity of the reader without telling him much, or anything, about the story.” But most stories being hard news accounts are given definitive headlines. They inform. Even then teasing is also informing ; the punch only Sn126 1D PRACTICE, Which tonal treatments vary. A ane is often take, in a lighter story and a serious headli ae eel us. matte, The only taboo is over-emphasis, Ww’ a Be $ overdo, that borders bn sensationalising. But uy ‘weal at for alway, playing it safe sometimes leads to under-c anne “ the Subd tone is not the right tone but an unreal muffle voice savagi the very news. Both the extremes have to be avoided in heag. line writing, When they occur for lack of news sense, there ‘. scope for rectification, but if they are deliberately done, the chances evaporate, NEWS EDITING IN THBORY AN! Verb in headline A common feature in every headline is the verb. The rule is: Take a verb in a headline. ‘Man bites dog’ is a ood headline because it has a verb in it, and that too in the active voice and present tense. And the verb ‘bites’ tells the news, which is the very act of biting. News is activity and a verb represents action, says Evens. The news activity is a continu. ing process well turned out by an active verb and the Present tense. A headline must live as it expresses life, and it lives with a verb. Nithout the verb it is either half-alive or half. dead. Neither represents the news reality. An active headline, therefore, is one which has an active verb in the present tense. Remember a verb in the Passive voice does not produce an active headline unless the Passive verb .is very much active. And the passive verb does not always indicate that the activity is a continuity. ‘Man bitten by a dog’ may be either ‘Man is bitten’ or ‘man was bitten’. Even So a verb in the passive voice may be active if that represents . the action very actively. Such a headline is active if there is a shift in emphasis from the What to the Who. When the Who becomes the What, the passive verb is active. ‘Gandhi assassi- nated’, ‘Kennedy shot dead’, and ‘Mrs‘Gandhi shot’ are examples a ing et and of the Who becoming the What. The ndhi, Kennedy and Mrs. Gandhi, led off the eadlines, since they were famous personalities, d like to be told about what had happened bout whoever had killed them. ‘Man shoots shoots Kennedy dead’ and ‘Own bodyguardsee = Sty . Gandhi? wi Le, own Mrs Gandhi’ will be 00d cor, al come To the facts of murder, That ¢ ty, net xilled 2—bec omes the What—the odes 18, the Ww ny yn mney or Mrs Gandhi. And the passive hae of Cena, F PN similarly, when Allahabad High Conta a Thongh, 1 oe Mrs Gandhi, the headlines screamed ‘Mr aside the I » aside instead of ‘High Court sets aside Mn Gandhiry rs. Gandhi's © ation S¢ ect Flash in the headline the right emphasis t i @ ader sometimes comes across headlines without wv ¢ which does not carry a verb is a label, a ve — does not speak of any activity. And a Sicilia a ‘no-news’ headline, It tells the reader iis dline ‘Man and dog’ mean that a man has bitten usual incident that yields news ? Rather, it may nd dog coexist. But it is not the news actually, ate the act of biting. But put ‘bites’ in the Even a verb in the The re ‘ peadlin jabel that peadline is pees the hea a dog, an um mean that man al as it does not indic: ce of ‘and’, and you will get the news. 1 not make it vigorous. ‘Dog bitten by man’ roundabout way of telling the news. this case is on the man biting the direct. A passive transforma- betrays an unnatural ‘back-to- front’ movement. ‘Write headlines with somebody saying something or doing something, rather than having it told to them or done to them, according to the IPI Manual (p. 32)- News is about the past activity, yet it is the newspaper practice to tell the news in 2 headline in the present tense The past tense is used both jn the intro and body matters. ‘A man bit a dog yesterday in the crowded College Street area of central Calcutta’ becomes «Man. bites ee. eae given two reasons for the use of the Wes Gbid, P us) a present tense saves space. Tt is F mut Tee F aa consumes less space than ‘Dog eal implies the sense of immediacy. that is known now and that ‘on the scene. According to peadlir are like the historical \ ‘that it went bang in the also points out that ‘the headlines ive voice will js not incorrect but it is the And the emphasis here in Communication must be tion of the headline sentence128 NEWS EDITING IN THEORY AND PRACTICE he present tense to describe events that hav ‘ c good reasons for this. First, jon Ady Prerens of participation. Secondly, the ey ACtiog , rvent have used th There are happened Te puts the reader into the mide I lle Of the tense is active It gives him a feeling be past, but it is the recent past, and the reader is Sears ’ rng it for the first time Ing of The reader, too, is aware of this convention. The m, he looks at a headline he gets the point that today’s he, ‘omens . or ‘addline, present the news of yesterday. The IPI Manual (Ch 4, pa, holds that ‘the present tense suggests action and you are aft : all supposed to be putting headlines on news, not history’, oe The past tense is rarely used, only when there is any clement in a subject now coming to light. Suppose a ee of a person murdered long ago is dicovered today and it eval that he had made in it some casual references to the assassin like ‘My life is in danger ; I am afraid of the man...’ and im this case the headline may run : Victim knew slayer, diary reveals. When a document just traced discloses an old incident the headline will have the past tense that describes the hitherto unknown matter and the present tense that refers to the reveal- ing document. Use a strong verb. Verbs ‘to be’ and ‘to have’ are weak. “Shillong has earthquake’ is weaker than ‘Shillong rocked’ or ‘Quake rocks Shillong’. Similarly, ‘Subrata arrested’ is stronger than ‘Subrata is arrested’. ‘Nehru is no more’ and “Mao is dead’ are weak headlines apparently. But at times . they are not. Such headlines came in some morningers of Calcutta after most newspapers in their special issues the pre- vious day had carried the banners as ‘Nehru dead’ and ‘Mao dead’. In such exceptional cases the ‘is’ is not a weak verb ; and even if weak it is not inappropriate, since it captures the morning-after mood well. } Generally, the articles—a, an, and the—are omitted it headlines, if they are not parts of the idioms or phrases. The articles, when not vital, should not come. Their omiss0" will save space and make room for some other detail. But “Village in a shambles ‘has an ‘a’ and this ‘a’ is not ble. Skeletonised headlines are more active than fat headlin’ which contain words not at all simple and short. TP : . iHEADLINES—WRITING AND STYLE 129 ter not use bombastic words but shou} : ay ke ld al ould eoret substitutes. Still it is sometin m ways go in “porter substitute for devaluation, Banned pie A 4 inking- : is better iol ® cpibited, yet drinking-ban is no match for prohibj an Instead of public transportation you can > #io™ about rehabilitation ? Avoid negative ree t wie. ‘ . ‘Ram on away 18 better than “Ram not Present’, Be Positive Phin eal gpecific. a8 well. ‘Narasimha Rao gets Home’ is certainly be than the label ‘Union cabinet reshuffle’, Labels work—when ? tecbless labels sometimes work well, yet don’t use ppeaningless “Death of boy’ ; ‘Problems of progres ‘Jae gevelopment plan’ ; and ‘India and non-alignment’. Should ask the reader to do the real work for you ? No. Give him meaningful headlines. Even then there are occasions when labels work, and effectively for that matter. The occasions arise when it is necessary to avoid a weak verb, to meet a difficult character count, to suit a matter which does not contain any active news point, and to create a change of pace. These are the occasions when Evans (p 37) wants the words in label headlines to be potent. A weak verb is not potent enough to give the news in a moment. ‘Basu has fever’ is weaker than ‘Basu ill’ even if the headline has no verb. In the case of a difficult unit count even a verb, a vital part of the sentence though, becomes redundant. ‘Cachar quake’ is shorter than ‘Quake rocks Cachar’ or even ‘Cachar rocked’. And when a story has no strong news point a . ea>ier, * ler at noon” murder which was committed a ce you can co hr a in a row on theIN THRORY AND PRACTICE 130 NEWS EDITING a children's school located on the slope, killing at one Strok virls a over two hundred little boys and girls Among the several pictures shot by photographers + he One of a policeman running dazed, with an uncong¢ ious his arms and her crying mother with arms stretched ne trail, was adjudged the best picture. A young amateyy fhe — grapher took the picture a And among the several headlines that ran ac ross the te OP « newspaper pages in Britain one banner carried the follow; : ing morning was adjudged the best. The headline did not conta n any verb. It was a label, not poor but potent. It reaq. Death of a genera Wasn't it overwhelming ? The desk sits over the judgement. Which one~ -the label or the active—will come in print ? The choice requires Judgment. Yet the subs should remember that the label is an exception that needs justification. Sometimes labels are departmental logos designed to organise like news stories under them. The logos are not headlines but are type-set lines, plain or reverse or screened, and appear as Science News ; Metropolitan News : City News; The Nation; Commerce, Trade and Industry ; Soccer sidelights ; Cricket Roundup ; Ringside View ; From The Gallery ; Last Week In Parliament ; and Newsfile. There may be several other Jogos which help the reader to locate news—they are published in the same places everyday or on particular days every week. Some guidelines For the headwriter here are some do’s and don'ts : (a) Take the subject in the head. If a girl steals a gun to commit suicide, the girl must lead off the headline sentence. Don’t omit her. ‘Girl steals gun for suicide’ is the right head. (6) When a name is news, flash it. Don’t use ‘he’ or she’. They are weakest forms of the subject. Even a title or an identification is weaker. Names often give authority to the news’ ‘Rajiv pleads innocence in Bofors deal’ or ‘Basu transfers Som’ is proper. - (¢) Take the venue when it is a part of the head. ‘Bandung Principles’ or ‘Tashkent Declaration’ lends weight to a bis event. ‘Trains collide head-on near Allahabad’ is correcteos all over the country, but ners 4 rape 16 die in big match do for Calcutta dailies, Il F al pede er paint the gory. Instead of takin Nev | alive’ take ‘Family of five dies in fire’ sted 4 “ we rer go for bad taste. Public t ever § + will ig ‘Family of astes must be res- if the word ‘rape’ is in bad taste, avoid it. Use a m like ‘abuse’. But how come when it is ‘Rape of 11S! she + tedesh’ ? pang ie no comment. Avoid imperative or admonitory |” They are comments, which are not newsy but ‘viewsy’. pead’s news operators are not entitled to vent their opinions and the ws. Fact is news, comment is editorial. For writing me dene are assistant editors. A headline with a com- editor" caieacialicing which is outside the domain of the desk. — n take the opinion of an outsider within quotes or with a uke but he cannot do anything which identifies his ar ith ei head taken without quotes, and without the Pe on, Evans) Gbult pieaeedeadiiee emoettsality, ‘The pt writer must put his personal opinions aside. He is heaclng flect as accurately as possible the content of the there Es A: headline writer is neither for nor against. He is story. neutral.” is in question. But these (3) se —_ whens ashes own funeral—is a are partial game aA not confuse the reader. As there are headline whic! death, the quoted ‘dead’ will dispel them. doubts about the an the man was really alive though The reader nade man was placed on the pyre at the declared dead, and eee up. Recently a girl was declared burning ghat he os a river in an Orissa village. _But one dead and thrown into home to everbody’s surprise. The day that very Bil tern ey home. rir, headline read : ‘Dead words, Don’t write LIC makes (8) Use meaning rte ‘Many more insure lives i nal progress heads as much as you avoid loaded Toad loaded ot . ‘Ten deaths in roag _ & Take only the MOS OT vren dic in car crash’ instead. mishap? isa poor headline: ina loedling, “Utosthe key word Only a preposition can come twice,eprTiIne IN THEORY AND PRACTICE we EDITING 132 NEV ¢ st : Still avoid one, the second or the fir Change Fire fight hotel fire’ to ‘Firemen fight hotel blazr Rajiy Mey changes in cabinet to bring in new faces’ has two ‘in Plang the first one can be dropped while the second one is ana. bu *PPro, priate preposition. Write ‘Rajiv plans cabinet cha anges ts bring in new faces’ Unit count Newspaper space is limited, and for each headline a spac given. The sub must take note of the physical context _ headline must be so written as to fit the allotted area, Ta area may be single-column, double-column, three-coh . multi-column or banner spread. The given space rovien for the limit which a headline must nev. s3 - es 5 : er cross. And this limit is the column width—a horizontal spread. Headline accommodation is dependant on three Specifica- tions—the point size, the type style, and the column width all involving a rigid character count. Letters are characters, The sub must know how many characters of a given size wa style will go within the column width. Consider the point size first and then the style. Will it be a 30pt head ? Will the type be expanded, medium or condensed ? Is the type family the Times Roman? Count and write and count. Remember that in a small type more letters will go. The larger the types the fewer the letters. And fat letters consume more space than thin letters. This knowledge helps the sub keep within limits. He fashions the headline that way. The letter count is the character count, and because after every word there occurs a gap it is also counted as one unit of space. All taken together we have the unit count, which means that not only each letter is counted but also each space coming in between words is counted. All are units, And the unit count denotes the letter plus space count. A unit value is given to every character and every space. S letters in the alphabet have the x-width, taken as one unit. ‘The fat m and w are measured as one and a half units ; and the thin ones like the i, J, and ¢ have half a unit value each. marks are half units while numerals are onc. age holds good only in small case letters 54 in| eee eo a 133 count all nd pound whic are usually one and a half. at, between words as one. Even dollar oe - ns cover one unit of space, . ois si sit count system is called the unit cou nie u Phe sub, while writing headlines, nt card by Evans if is used will “looks at the card ing if the words used will come within specified limit ts, st on is a three-line headline : - Six murdered in Punjab shrine sod the unit count shows that the first line has 124 units, the mint being 1441 1 (space) WilLtLiiii; that the e nd line has 8} units, the count being 4.1 1 (space) 14 inglls and that the third line has 54 units, the count being 11141 i Now look at the following three-liner : BHEL gets Kolaghat contract and you will find that the first line has 10 units, the second line and the third line 7 units. pent cond or the third line of a three-liner is longer than other lines. In this headline Rajiv reshuffles cabinet Be the middle. line is jaybomncenesstmlt 3 ares Try to avoid it ; if necessary, TOWN, a. as pattern. Ofe" ggling. And the result may 74 units,134 NEWS EDITING IN THEORY AND PRACTICE, The line will be extended and look longer, Yet Stich spacing does not improve the look. Rather, the word comet tness is loosened, Doesn't the headline Pac. . Rajiv reshuffles cabinet look odd ? It does. Headlines writt en slovenly, unit count, are irregul ‘ar patterns, and a mot Arnold (ibid, Gh 5, p 134) headwriter. The incantation helps to keep the field, Flitjays are skinny ; whammies are fat. The letters Shine and j count 4 and the w and m are wide counting 14. Ang the rest of the letters count one. The one-unit space provided between words in a headline facilitates reading. If there is less space or no space in be: the words will then clash against one another, and for lack of intermediate separation all words in a line will appear as th they are one word. The resultant mess-up is difficult Teading Look at this mix-up ignoring the ley Nuisance, 7 has mnemonic device to aid It is; Fivedieinbigfire and you are in for confusion. It is also the same mess-up if you use all capital letters like FIVEDIEINBIGFiRE and you will look at it with awe and disdain, won’t you ? Wordjams produce an ugly sculptured head, called the thead. It is difficult to avoid a bust head in the downstyle But the upper-and-lower style with the may be of some help. ‘Five r than the all-down cram, ye x of ens printed on sheets al show different typEADLINES— WRITING AND SATLE bd n idea about how many units go it This is the headline schedule, which vet Pan all ‘hed sked’, prepared according to meric’ ya eet : ig ; of diminishing points. In other words, it compiled from type charts given by the printers. : newspaper offices may have different type charts, for ‘hed skeds’ will also be different. ard of a newspaper may show that in s/c width a xg cap Times will take in, say, five units and the Ic, say, sever 5 4 ot cap will take in seven and the Ic nine ; an 18 cap will take in nine and the le 11 5 and so on down the sizes. Similarly, in d/c width a 30 cap Times will take in, say, 13 units and the ic, say, 185 & 24 cap will take in 16 and the le 22; an 18 cap will take in 20 and the le 28 ; and so on down the sizes. The card also shows that fewer units will go in expanded types and more units wi P ivi al and sizes ne es nes and faces. which the The © Il go in medium or condensed types- In italics, too, fewer units go than in upright faces. By constant references to the card the headwriter gets used Practices will enable him to write wi His eyes are set. to the schedule. counting the headlines that fit. Headlinese _ Striving for the right good headline writing, the headwriter 1 may produce ! expressions pression at a sub must ove insensible € omissions so, the he According created. and the count underlines yet in his urgencyNEWS EDITING IN THEORY AND PRACTICE > 136 (6) creation of plural adjective ; (c) extravagant extension (d) excessive omission of words ; (¢) Confuusio, metaphor ; , enses ; (f) abuse of headline catchwords ; and (g) slang E of es . “ * Evang s explained the sins with examples. When too many nouns come as adjectives, the headline i is confusing. In this ; Parachute jump general dies do you get the meaning rightaway ? Who could be the parachute jump general ? Is the parachute jump a unit ai is the general in charge of it? In fact, the general who took the parachute jump died. In this Two beautifuls women ... “beautifuls’ is the plural adjective. Can you create it ? It will be wrong. Simply ‘beautiful’ is enough. Metaphors are helpful asides but their extravagant use leaves the reader behind. ‘Watery grave’ is not incorrect, but why not ‘Two drowned’ ? And if the reader comes over too often to figuratives he will grow aversions. Should the sub always use ‘white gold’ for uranium, ‘black gold’ for oil, and ‘black diamond’ for coal? ‘Green revolution’ and ‘white revolution’ may produce smart headlines but their frequent uses will make them cheap. Miserliness is as bad as extravagance. In the name of compression the sub sometimes tends to omit one or two words from the headline. An omission may help to fit the head in a given space, but excessive omissions or any omission of key words will make it vague. This headline Writers’ Buildings employees salute Martyrs may seem wordy, but it has a meaning. If it becomes * Writers salute martyrs it will mean that writers have met at a martyrs. You may omit ‘Buildings’, ey Boras Md Otherwise, the meaning will be different, Bors: When tenses are confused, the headline is p the headline the present tense is used. But, ne: In Pointed out, ‘we cannot retain the present tense thro, has when there is a clear time-change built into the ,oUshout eadline,’ - an _ ~~»HEADLINES —writing — ‘D STYLE 137 when this happens there is confusion fe tke CID suspect arson after babies om lead che confusion 18 too glaring, If “suspected? ind at y past tenses, are used, will it be a better head saved’, the she CID suspect arson any longer ? The fact we Doesn't . picion grew after the babies had been Saved hat the aip teas, and Evans has used a colo There are 8 h nto avoid the co, phat is, ‘Babies saved in fire ; GED Suspect _— Catchwords are overworked, yet shock, , probe are potent symbols, titans (p 102) wares? ace? ate soup concentrates they need water’, What does ‘Rail = crash ordeal’ mean ? And whose ordeal is it ? Sure} "_ commuters suffered much as a train crashed in the icin, rail yard. F Avoid slang, which may pass in a light headline but, as Evans says, it ‘fails when slang is piled on slang’. Foags in effect, are jarring. And revolting, too. ‘Cops nab pop gals’ may not be out of tune with the Story, but the slangs are too many. Evans cites one classic headline taken from the Chicago Tribune. It read : Midway signs Limey prof to dope Yank talk and what does it mean ? The story was: Professor William Cragie was joining the University of Chicago to direct the compilation of the Dictionary of American English. Decker headline A headline may consist of one line or more. Similarly, it may have one unit or more. And a one-unit headline may be a one-liner, two-liner, three-liner or a multi-liner. But when the headline has more than one unit, each unit is forming its i in i i-liner headline is one part being complete in itself. A multi i head, at the multi-unit one. A double-deck bus is one bus having two decks ; likewise, a multi-storeyed building is. one building having several storeys. A unit is called a akon ee oe two decks or ea units. There is a basic unity decks are not jus canine Without which the reader gets arson’,wews EDITING IN THEORY “wm *~ACTICR = 5, pp 95-96) defines the deck h is set in a single type style = ral such portions set in differs, ize I decks. And each deck Say rm ibid, Ch {line whic tha Arnold tion of a heac jline has seve’ When a heac zes, it has severa styles and si For example, one or more Tines. . a one deck one line ; (a) Man bites dog +) Man bites : dog ) Man bites dog and here in this case each deck is complete and makes for 0, headline. All the lines in such a unit have the same i style and size. Evans (ibid, Bk 3, Ch 1, pp 1-5) says, ra us not confuse deck and line: A deck is a distinct headline on its own and as such it may consist of one or more Tie And each deck makes ‘some kind of sense self-contained’, . a one deck two-liner ; (e . a one deck three-liner ; In a headline clear breaks at line-ends are vital for eye pause and understanding. Not only should each line make sense, partial though, but also each deck must express fully one idea or thought and in no case should the idea be split, A clear break at the end is satisfying. When a news idea is split and a portion of it is spilled over from the first deck to the second, a split head is produced. Here is a double-deck headline : Five children die ~ag Q) 7 House collapses in Calcutta eae) and isn’t the single idea of the house collapse in Calcutta killing five children is split and separated in the two decks ? It is. The first deck does not give the full import of the fact because the idea is not complete without the corroborating eae which has come in the second. The only good thing '* each line in each unit makes partial sense but the t. NS AND STYLE g. The sub will have to rewrite th, ssi , mi heading so 4 iy idea comes in one deck. ‘The ry full 1 i sult whe Five children die in city house collapse { now the meaning is complete, ne anc iy The TPT Manual 34) says, ‘It is irritating for the reader when thought from one deck to the other,’ ‘The split fails to he 44 reader get the news in one gulp, Sometimes its attribution are split and taken in two sep. times the attribution is taken in a tagline, jine which is not a deck though it has and size. Even then the practice of carr a separate deck or in a tagline is not of reader has to wait for the speaker, Always tell the reader that the opin This somebody must come along with t deck. But the worst form of confusion is created when an opinion comes within quotes and the attribution is not taken at all, ‘Priests will not mediate’ is such a heading which seems to c y little sense. The story is about the denial by the Akal Takht chief, Giani Kirpal Singh, of a report about mediation with the government to solve the Punjab tangle. The early Feport was that the Golden Temple priests had offered to mediate. But the quotes are not enough to suggest that the statement has been made by the Akal Takht chief months after the Operation Bluestar and the tragic death of Mrs Indira Gandhi. =~ statement implies that the Akali stance on a — Amedes Sues ees etn teint? clear just from the quotes ? And wl : i. . when an important perso Never withold the name Bae OES thetanme ether. made an important Sane RR Ee ene together, If the sub finds it too fe at or word alignment. Even he should think of a Se eolnisin’ thanallotted. Put the he may have to opt wea taking the opinion and its maker fact in proper perspect? 1 im the same G0 uch in we in newspapers isto reorder A modern practice, Ch 4 h you carry the the an opinion gnd arate decks. Some- a set right subsidiar a different type styic ying the attribution in much help, because the And this is confusin ion is somebody else’s. he opinion in the same—— Ue the perspective, The attribution line often comes mop the Staple deck which gives the main news, and this line, unlike a tagling is a strapline set centred or flush left in smaller type size often light underscored, In a decker headline the first deck is the staple deck th gives the main news. This order is useful as it provides for the information at the first opportunity, But sometimes this Order is not properly maintained. Decks appear, but the main news point may not come in the first deck where it should come naturally but comes actually in the second subsidiary deck. This kind of variation gets the reader a blind top, the top that sees nothing and says nothing. The blind top is a meaningless load under which the news itselfreels. In the following heading House collapse ... (first deck) Five children die in city + (second deck) what does the first deck mean ? The news comes in the second deck. The first deck is too blind to see anything and say anything, a very generalised label denoting a subject which may be old or new. Any day a house may collapse. In this one Alipur Zoo Sean) Three tiger cubs die ea dd) the first deck is blind. For news read the second deck. The ‘sub cam avoid such a blind top by rewriting the headeine as 3 tiger cubs die in Alipur Zoo and certainly this one-deck headline is better—a newsy head. But if he has to deck a second take he can write Vet doctors study mystery disease and carry a separate idea init. ‘This is the way the decks should be written, or the logo-type label does not serve the purpose. Always take the news information in the first deck Let seen first, read first and remembered. And for this reason ee -first deck becomes the staple deck. After the staple neHEADLINES WAS DINY AND STYLE 14 I secondary news, and these facts being incidentals h ¥ a the fal : : and oot rmatiol a i jortant information follow in the subsequent saa i cks, ess yplementary information in the dec ‘ rake ak ba In other words, this is erbrars, next ~ on Evans (ibid, Ch 2, p 19) clearly states shen oe Me deck will carry the most important news point, simple and adorned ; we a = meet claborate this with a signifi- cant detail, without oe a single word ; or it may add further news point. i When a headline is built deck on deck the reader a that the shape points to an order of diminishing importance He reads them from the top downwards. But as he wants to digest the news in one gulp he concentrates on the top deck 1fit is the staple deck he will get the news. This is the readout deck, too. He loses his concentration as he moves down. He may not feel like going on to the second deck or further down As Westley (ibid, Ch 9, pp 123) has put it, ‘the first deck must stand alone—that it must convey meaning without requiring the reader to go on to the second deck.’ Changing style Headline style is ever changing. From the one-line label of the past to the multiple decks of the sixties was a long journey. The sixth decade of the 20th century saw the emergence of single deckers. In the thirties there was the headline complex. Multiple decks would appear in different sizes and styles sepa- rated by horizontal cut-offs or jim-dashes. A headline with multiple decks would look like Calcutta tragedy oe House collapse —————— 5 children die — Firemen stoned ac Arrests by police rr. coming in between the decks. The with the diving pe decorative imedathes oF cu off rules.— _ a I ppirine 142 news out of fashion was the decorat 5 . sats : ati «hing that - i Functionalism simplified 4° - he fit “off rule ae ie Later, t ee the cutee at deck dividers we: dash ee found that d travel They Jatin style ty retarded the ns aver The sy, ey ¢ rea unnecessary 5 rps: white gutters nee — to separate ves thought tha tie d of the hairline diyj a xs. They used the white instea divisions the decks. eated in between the decks the white—an improve. Blanks —_ varlier dash. It smoothed the optical path. y¢, ment a ae blanks were as much space-consuming ay it was fol a ephe only advantage, though, was that the reading jim-dashes. we a ca ecks continued. American papers went abe oa Ei papers did not lag far behind, and Indian Papers followed suit, Inthe sixties, however, the style started changing, Except papers like The New York Times, The Times of London, ‘The Daily Telegraph of London, The Times of India of Bombay, and The Statesman of Calcutta, to mention a few, most dailies all over the world began the switch. The Statesman did take a cautious step towards deck-shedding, and till the other day jt carried double-deckers. Still multiple decks appear even today on the morning after the union budget day every year, and on special emergency occasions, when different kinds of treatment are given to news stories to meet the immense hunger of the reading public. But multi-decks on routine days are a rare phenomenon. Multi-decks have been found to be non-functional and a wasteful practice. Heavy doses of information provided through several decks act as a disincentive. The reader would get all the information by reading the decks—just ; and he won't feel inclined to read the text. Deck stacks were found to be gore than good. Too much information in the very heading is a stimulant too little. And if for this readers are depleted the decks prove to be roadblocks, so malfunctional. ‘Newspapers began clearing the road-blocks. Decks disai peared one by one. Shed upwards—was the procedure. And ultimately one deck survived, the first deck. first deck turns out to be the staple deck. —* Deck-shedding was also due to the newspri! ortage faced acutely by the newspapers ite world rea =. the