This is the season to watch out for emotive and sensational headlines
Pakistani police at the gate to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 4, 2011. When US forces killed the terrorist, the ‘Philadelphia Daily News’ headlined the story on May 2, 2011 thus: ‘We Got the Bastard!’
What interests us are headlines that are more emotive and sensational than informational.
Then there are others that are apparently intended to capture your emotions or influence what you think of the story.
Newspaper headlines are couched in as few words as possible, leaving the reader to expand on their import. They are also the first — and in some cases the only — thing one reads in a story. So it’s important to get them right, and to read them right, especially at this time when emotive and sensational headlines are likely to dominate media coverage of the political scene.
Richard Gizbert, presenter of Aljazeera’s media programme The Listening Post, underlines the importance of headlines in influencing what people read and think about the stories. He said, “There is a legendary quotation, legendary in that it may well be fictional, attributed to a newspaper magnate, which goes something like this: When asked why his newspaper did not publish editorials, opinion pieces in order to further his political agenda, he apparently replied: Who needs editorials? I have headlines.
