Which would you prefer - a fine or a butt probe?

There is much speculation as to what punishment Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew will receive from the FA for his head-butting shenanigans at the weekend. There is a precedent though. Kidderminster manager Mark Yates nutted Exeter City player Lee Elam in 2007 and received a £350 fine and a four-match ban. Pardew has already been fined £100,000 by Newcastle. So the punishment already seems out of kilter. Mind you, according to the Express & Echo headline from 2007, Yates also had to face a butt probe. Looks like  Pardew got off lightly.

Whacky headlines and bills of the week

With all the dog-eat-stuff dominating the media this week here are some more obscure headlines you might have missed.

This one, from the Irish Independent, has a bit of everything. The use of the word 'innocent' makes it special. After all, had the cow been guilty, the story just wouldn't be the same.

It is a clear winner of the whacky headline of the week, although this one from the Mirror is certainly a contender.

Meanwhile the Worksop Guardian makes another contribution to the growing list of headlines based on song titles. There are more of these here, here and here.

There were a couple of good bills doing the rounds this week too. This one from the News & Star in certainly Carlisle caught the eye. All is explained here.

And finally, let's finish with some good news from the Kent Messenger. 

Headline of the week .. Ozil's oozing conk

There have been some interesting headers kicking around this week but my tabloid headline of the week has to be this one from The Sun.

The paper has always been partial to a rhyming headline - and getting conk and bonk into one heading is a tabloid sub-editor's dream. 

I was with the Daily Mail's subbing trainees this week and I set them the task of examining Wednesday's papers to find the best, worst, laziest and most vivid headlines of the day. They were divided over 'Rexecuted', The Sun's splash on Prince William's guard dogs being put down.

I quite liked it ... Rex as a dog's name and, of course, king. But whereas some chose it as the best pun of the day, others thought it was the worst. The dogs, they said, are called Brus and Blade. 

Back on the sporting front there were lots of puns on Jose Mourinho's 'shell shocked rotten eggs' being 'scrambled' and 'fried' by Basle on Wednesday night.

I preferred 'Basle Faulty'. It was fairly obvious I guess (and I'm sure I have seen it before) but it worked well with the comical picture of Mourinho in the Express. The Mail used it too.

My favourite footballing pun of the week though was in The Daily Telegraph. 'Juan for the road' sums up Mata's position perfectly in only four words.

The ambiguous headline of the week was this one from the BBC website.

It reminds me of the infamous 'Police help rape victim'. It also encouraged Simon Bougourd to send me this ...

Talking of elephants, The Northern Echo's deputy editor Chris Lloyd also posted this from the archives ...

Chris suggested that it might be the greatest headline to have ever appeared in the paper ... and had the temerity to asked if I had written it. Even before my time that one.

Has digital changed the art of headline writing?

Here is my latest article for InPublishing magazine - looking at the differences between writing headlines for print and online. There is some good insight by those who know, including Mail Online deputy publisher Pete Picton, Guardian backbencher Simon Ricketts, The Sun's Victoria Watson, the Indie's Martin King and media consultant Andy Drinkwater. If you have great eyesight you can read the print version by clicking on the images above or, if you prefer, you can read it online here. The headlines are the same in both versions. If you missed my last InPublishing article, on humour in newspapers, it's here. 

Extreme tabloid headlines by NY Post

This headline from the New York Post, on the resignation of CIA director David Petraeus, made a few people smile this weekend. But inevitably it wasn't to everyone's tastes. 'Brutal and juvenile' was how one of my Twitter friends responded. The Post can be both of those things. It certainly pulls no punches and is the least politically correct newspaper you are likely to read. The tabloid style, and particularly the headlines, were initially influenced by Rupert Murdoch's Australian and UK titles, such as The Sun, but it is fair to say the Post has taken tabloidese to a different level.

Its most famous headline, 'Headless body in topless bar' was voted as one of the greatest newspaper headlines of all time by New York magazine. It was written by the Post's larger-than-life managing editor Vincent Musetto. Since then its headlines have continued to shock. 

Even I was taken aback by this headline after Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave the peace sign at the UN conference in September. The Post is, of course, the print equivalent of Fox News so shouldn't really be taken too seriously.

Here are some other Post headlines. Juvenile, brutal or tabloid brilliance? Make your own mind up.

Viz visits the News Shopper ...

Here's a touch of Viz nestling in a local weekly paper. I guess you could just about argue it works because, even if you don't get the pun, the heading makes perfect sense. It was in the @NewsShopper with a hat-tip to Kent and Sussex Courier reporter @frankhamo.

Aye, Aye ... haven't we seen this before?

Here's my favourite headline from last week. Bye, Bye Captain graces the front of the Hull Daily Mail's story about a businessman who falsely claimed to be a Navy Captain. It is a sequel to last November's headline, when suspicions first arose, Aye, Aye Captain. One of those headlines that the paper has been sitting on for months, just waiting for the right outcome.

Did you get an invite ... or an invitation?

Lots of smiley pictures on today's front pages  ... mainly of Kate Middleton, although bit-player Prince William does appear in half of them. Even the Independent, which could traditionally be relied on to take a cynical view of such extravaganzas, has taken the royal shilling. It's easy to see why the pictures made their way on to every front page ... but what a dull set of headlines. Celebrate our happiest day, A couple smiles for the world, Happiest day of our lives ... they all sound like lines from a boring bridegroom's speech (perhaps they are). Of course it is always hardest to write headlines on stories where nothing has happened. At least The Guardian had a stab at a news angle while  the Independent, quite sensibly, chose not to bother with a headline at all. While we are on about wedding headlines, here's my greying sub gripe of the day. When did the word 'invite' become a noun? I know the tabloids can justify a bit of colloquialism to make it fit but even the BBC, The Daily Telegraph, Independent and the Daily Mail have decided you receive an invite rather than an invitation. I much prefer Ian Hislop's reference to a wedding 'ticket' than the ubiquitous 'invite'. At least The Guardian appears to be fighting a grammatical rearguard action. Anyway, enough of that. I am off to lunch today ... to the Plough with Harveys' Olympia ale, local wild boar on the menu and no TV. Anyone care to join me? No invite, invitation or ticket required.

 

Couple of dodgy headlines from Ireland

Here's a couple of contributions from over the Irish Sea to kick us off today. First, Robert Cullen, editor of the Sligo Weekender, ponders the wisdom of this headline. He writes: "Leaving aside the 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone' here's a headline from the most recent Sunday Business Post." Meanwhile the excellent Fleet Street Blues draws attention to yet another dodgy juxtaposition. Subbing basics. I will be covering all the potential editing perils and much more in a subbing masterclass for Press Association Training from June 7-10. If anyone feels they would benefit from learning a full range of subbing skills, from basic text-editing to page design, the details are here.

Take a tour of The Sun's subs room

If you are a beleaguered sub-editor, wondering if your days are numbered, then this is a must listen. It's the BBC's Word of Mouth tour of the Sun's subs room with managing editor Graham Dudman. He describes the subs as "the craftsmen of the English language who make The Sun what it is." Chief reporter John Kay says the reporters are "the foot-soldiers of the paper and what we produce are the nuggets of facts which our wonderful sub-editors then mould into this fantastic peerless prose which appears every morning." He goes on to say that, how ever well reporters think they have written their stories, "our wonderful sub-editors always find a way to improve them". He admits: "I hate to say it but every occasion that they have re-written one of my stories, which fortunately doesn't happen too often, it has always been improved." Great to hear. It is also good to hear subs talking about the importance of rhythm, pace, creativity, turning pictures into words and writing headlines from left field. We ran the subbing training scheme for The Sun and one of our former trainees, Fran Wetzel, talks about her experiences too. There are some classic Sun headlines in the programme. Many you will recognise, but I hadn't heard this one by sub Elaine Roberts before: A prize bull that dies and its sperm is frozen for future breeding. The headline: Pushing up Daisies.

As I have said before, it is not coincidence that the two most successful daily papers in the country, The Sun and the Daily Mail, remain committed to the craft of subbing. Graham emailed the link to me to say: "If I was running a subbing course, I’d be tempted to make it required listening!" Couldn't agree more ...  

Type comparison 2 - sans headline faces

One of our Irish clients has been in touch, looking to change their sports page headline font from Franklin Gothic. The key question in any such change, of course, is why? Do they want:

• A more economical face (a better count)
• Clearer legibility
• Stronger display
• Something more modern
• A different font from another title or from other sections
• A brand change?

Anyway, in order to help them consider which font they might go for, we have prepared another typechart. This one is for sans display faces for newspapers. There are of course different weights for all those listed, except Impact. If you would like a higher res PDF than the jpgs above, let me know on petersands@mistral.co.uk and I will send you a copy. The previous typechart for newspaper body copy fonts can be found here.

There is no language like the Irish ...

Nobody could ever accuse the Irish of not telling it like it is. Plain-speaking is a characteristic of the people and, naturally, of their newspapers. I have already referred to the Daily Star's direct front page on the budget. But not content with the word gobshites in 187pt caps on the front page it has now blown up the page and stuck it - along with another front page which refers to wanker bankers - on the side of its promotional Star truck in Dublin. Thanks to Fiach Kelly for the picture. And here's another down-to-earth assessment of Ireland's financial position. I have no idea if it was broadcast but it's funny nonetheless. Meanwhile the Irish Examiner took a more satirical approach to promoting its Budget coverage. All credit to them. Even faced with financial meltdown, the Irish sense of humour remains irrepressible.

20 classic tabloid headlines

I have spent the last three weeks in Hull, training reporters to write headlines. There were 80 journalists, from the Hull Daily Mail, Scunthorpe and Grimsby Telegraphs, Lincolnshire Echo and assorted weeklies, all scribbling real headlines to stick on the wall and discuss. We also looked at the 28 rules that govern good headlines. The first is simple: The sole purpose of the headline is to catch the eye, to persuade the reader to turn to the article underneath. If the headline is boring, then it is unlikely to succeed. Avoid dull words. 

We certainly had no problem finding dull words. The list included:

Residents, Boost, Council, Adjourned, Drama, Appeal, Volunteers, Alert, Meeting, Alarm, Accommodation, Project, Services, Centre, Plans, Call to, Bid to, Proposals, Committee, Bonanza, Blueprint, Development, Fund, New, Infrastructure, Facilities, Situation, Crackdown, Local.

We even found some classic bad headlines (not from their own titles I would stress) including: 

At first we thought they were a random collection of words rather than headlines. What all these words have in common is they are non-specific - none of them build a picture in the reader's mind.
The reporters did pretty well and have since written publishable headlines for their papers. At the moment they are writing heads only on shorter stories. But who would bet against that being rolled out? 

These Northcliffe papers are not averse to using the odd pun,  as you can see from the above. But the headlines we were dealing with were, of course, very different from those in the tabloids. That didn't stop us taking time out to look at some of the classics. Here are 20 that might just brighten up your freezing cold November day.