Watch Those Headlines

An article in Saturday's edition of The Crimson served to illustrate a problem that continues to plague newspapers--that headlines of stories do not always accurately reflect the rest of the text.

The piece in question, which ran on page 5 of the paper, was titled, "Gregoire Violated UC By-Laws: Vice President Incorrectly Reinstated Liston to Council."

Brandon C. Gregoire '95 did not incorrectly reinstate Joshua D. Liston '95 to the council. In fact he did not even reinstate him. The meeting to decide on Liston's reinstatement was recessed. Further, though the headline states that Gregoire violated the Undergraduate Council's by-laws, the first paragraph of the story takes a step back and says he "may" have violated them.

Why does this happen? The common perception is that reporters feel the need to draw attention to their stories, and write sensational headlines in an attempt to do so. In fact, at most papers, including The Crimson, reporters do not write their own headlines.

At The Crimson, this is a result of our technology, and the fact that late-breaking news often causes the paper's layout to change. Stories are written on IBM PC compatible machines but the paper is laid out on Macintoshes. Since the size, length and style of the headline is usually not known at the time a story is written, and since the two systems are quite different, it is close to impossible for reporters to write their own headlines.

And so they are written by editors later in the night, when the paper is being laid out.

Often, the person writing the headline does not know much about the story--and may only have read it quite recently. In addition, since all of this may happen extremely late at night, the editor may not have a lot of time to get a headline written.

News stories are written in a form called "inverted pyramid." This means that the most important information is presented in the first--or lead--paragraph, and the less pertinent a fact is, the lower it will be in the story.

This form is designed to help readers get a quick overview of a story by reading just the first few lines of text. It also means that editors base their headlines largely on the lead paragraph of

The other basic issue with headlines is that of limited space. Often the precisely right headline doesn't fit and so as editor has to make do with a somewhat less desirable one.

Both of these factors came into play in the recently botched headline about the Undergraduate Council by-laws.

While the headline should have read that Gregoire may have violated the by-laws, of that people were raising questions about one of his actions that seemed to contradict the by-laws, none of these could be made to fit in to the space that was left for the headline. This is not a justification for HEADLINE--Jus an examination of why it ran.

further the of the article is wrong even. It implies, in contradiction to the rest of the story that, Liston had already been reinstated to the council. The was based largely off this lead.

these a lesson in all third Maybe that reporters should make absolutely certain their leads are correct and that editors should try to read entire stories before writing headlines. leads and headlines are enough to it them,

he reached by . His is harvard .

The other basic issue with headlines is that of limited space. Often the precisely right headline doesn't fit and so as editor has to make do with a somewhat less desirable one.

Both of these factors came into play in the recently botched headline about the Undergraduate Council by-laws.

While the headline should have read that Gregoire may have violated the by-laws, of that people were raising questions about one of his actions that seemed to contradict the by-laws, none of these could be made to fit in to the space that was left for the headline. This is not a justification for HEADLINE--Jus an examination of why it ran.

further the of the article is wrong even. It implies, in contradiction to the rest of the story that, Liston had already been reinstated to the council. The was based largely off this lead.

these a lesson in all third Maybe that reporters should make absolutely certain their leads are correct and that editors should try to read entire stories before writing headlines. leads and headlines are enough to it them,

he reached by . His is harvard .

further the of the article is wrong even. It implies, in contradiction to the rest of the story that, Liston had already been reinstated to the council. The was based largely off this lead.

these a lesson in all third Maybe that reporters should make absolutely certain their leads are correct and that editors should try to read entire stories before writing headlines. leads and headlines are enough to it them,

he reached by . His is harvard .

these a lesson in all third Maybe that reporters should make absolutely certain their leads are correct and that editors should try to read entire stories before writing headlines. leads and headlines are enough to it them,

he reached by . His is harvard .

he reached by . His is harvard .