Posted by
Martin Stabe
on 11 May 2006 at 09:36
Tags: Journalism, United States
In a move that would, if replicated here, put most British subs out of work, the editor of an American newspaper has banned the use of puns in headlines.
As noted in A Capitol Idea, an blog Nicole Stockdale, a sub copy-editor on the Dallas Morning News, the editor of the San Antonio Express-News, Robert Rivard, e-mailed an edict to staff banning puns after a shocking nine of them appeared in the paper’s 20 April edition. Among the offending headers were: “Mumps outbreak swells” and
“Bell’s name doesn’t have a familiar ring for many voters”.
Good heavens. Of course we can’t allow that.
Apparently, punning is some sort of huge controversy amongst US subs. They even discussed it at their recent conference. Stockdale’s view is this:
Much of the time, puns end up in our headlines because we feel lazy if they don’t. We can read a story and throw a headline on top of it. We’ll do some work to make it fit and strengthen the verb. And that’s good enough. But with 15 minutes left before the story needs to go, maybe we can do something better, something to show that we tried.
Who are we showing? Our colleagues, our bosses, maybe even a headline judge. But readers? Seldom do they care. They’re looking for news, and a clever headline doesn’t tell the story any better. It may even distract them from the news.
Online, where users come to an individual story via search engines and RSS feeds that display little more than headlines, this is unquestionably true. Puns, especially culturally-specific ones that some readers won’t understand, will reduce traffic to a story, no matter how good the content. With this in mind, clever online subs are tailoring heads to the unique needs of news web sites.
Print, though, has its own medium-specific requirements. On a printed page, the object of the headline is to attract readers at the newstand or to draw attention accross a spread. In print, pictures and story placement provide additional cues to the reader about stories’ content and provide context to illuminate the meaning to the most obsure innuendo or the most tortured pun. Surely, in that context, a little wit and humour is likely to raise a reader’s interest, not detract from it.
