Headlines and More Headlines

This week has been quite rough for me when it came to writing headlines. For my work, I am required to write feature stories for events that happen in my hospital, but when it is time for me to write the headline I almost always pass the job along to someone else. Headlines are the most important part of writing an article because they determine whether or not someone chooses to read your story. As I was completing one of the headline assignments this week, I came across some pretty good and pretty bad headlines. 

An Example of a Good and Bad Headline:

The Cruel Mystery of Ebola: One Boy Lives, Another Dies

By SHERI FINK 6:41 PM ET

Over and over, doctors in Liberia have been confounded by the divergent paths of Ebola patients whose cases appeared similar at first. 

I think this headline is well written because it immediately attracts the reader’s attention by using the words 'Lives' and 'Dies.' These words are emotional and powerful words that are hard to overlook when scanning through a page of headlines. The seriousness of this headline is effective in drawing people to the article.

 On the Hunt for Hackers, but Not the Spotlight
 

By NICOLE PERLROTH and MATTHEW GOLDSTEIN 8:39 PM ET

Lawrence Baldwin is one of the more well-known and valuable allies of financial institutions in their fight against online crime, but the nature of his work means he keeps a very low profile.

I think this headline is poorly written because it is not specific enough. I'm not even sure what it actually means! I see that they are looking for computer hackers...but what does the second statement mean? I think this headline could be rewritten to make more sense about what the article is actually about. In my opinion, the capital letters in the headline throws off the meaning and is distracting from the message. The lead helps to explain the headline a bit, but still does not portray the correct message to the audience.

Editing Mistake of the Week:

Clearly this sign uses the wrong form of "your" in the statement. It should read "you're." The way everything is aligned makes me wonder if the creator of the sign purposely used the wrong from in order to fit everything in two lines. Hmm... I guess we'll never know.