This is the sixth Reporter’s Shop Talk edition and today it is Jeff Turl talking with Dave Dale. One of the more interesting aspects of writing for the Internet is, how do you write headlines that people are going to read and then want to read further into the story? And one of the things about today, of course, is that when you look at the main page, all you're seeing is the headlines. And so the headlines have to be written in a way that draws the reader in. So what kind of attention and details do you give to headlines? (Audio File of conversation at the bottom of this story).
Dave:
Well, the headlines are the trickiest aspect because you definitely want to get people interested without giving away the whole story. And you also want to provide them with enough information to know what they're going to be reading about and tell the story. It's a tricky, tricky business. I was going to ask you, you have actually more experience than I do as far as Internet headlines go, how do you avoid being click bait-ish?
Jeff:
Well, I think people don't really understand what ‘click bait’ is. That’s when you see something in the headline to get people to read the story, but the story doesn't really deliver. So you might say something like a “Three-headed monster in Trout Lake,” and then you read the story talking about how to clean up beaches or something like that. Right. So it is really sensationalizing something that has nothing to do with the story but draws the reader into something they would find less interesting. So we don't use click bait on BayToday, but I think people confuse click bait with really interesting headlines. And so if you have a great headline and it makes someone read the story they write (This is click-bat!”), or it could be anything.”
Dave:
One of the things I always didn't like about online headlines is when I was attracted to a story with the subject matter but then I found out it wasn't about North Bay. It brought me to a story that would say, if you're talking about the Trout Lake Monster, it would be about the northern Ontario one up near Kenora, right?
Jeff:
Well, I suppose I think part of that, though, is one of the tricks to writing a good headline is to keep it short. And if you start putting in the headline itself where the story is from every time, then it's going to ruin a lot of headlines.
So you always have the dateline starting off, usually when it's from out of town or a reference to where the story is occurring in the first or second line. But I think it's difficult every time to put the location in the headline.
Dave:
And also when you do put the location in, people that aren't interested in that location certainly aren't going to be diving into that story. They're not going to bother.
Jeff:
No, I think that's true. And I think it also goes along with keeping headlines short. I can recall, actually, the best headline I think I've ever seen. Was a number of years ago, if you recall, that rock band called Bread. And when they broke up, somebody who's a genius at writing wrote the headline: “Bread is toast.” And I've always thought of that, you know, as short, punchy, it's neat. And I think that's what we try to attain as headline writers is how can we make it short that’s attention-getting.
Dave:
Yeah, well, actually, with the online headlines, you can use more words than in a print publication, but you don't want to use too many.
Jeff:
Right. I think if people see too many words in the headline … it tends to turn them off.
Dave:
Now, I was reading the online BayToday Facebook page and there was a column the other day, an opinion column that had a headline that some people reacted negatively to that on its surface, like they thought it was sensationalism. But I don't even see it, but I guess some people look through different lenses. Of course, one person thought it was racist. And this is Don Curry’s column talking about local health care vacancies being filled by nurses from the Philippines. Immigrants now account for one out of four health care workers. And several of the comments underneath thought that there was a poor headline because it seemed to them to be click bait, trying to raise the ire of people that are sensitive to racial reporting. Also, they figured that it was to attract people that were pro immigrant.
Jeff:
Well, I saw that headline and I saw the comments when I read the headline, I didn't think it was racist or anything. I thought it was just a proper headline. And when I read the comments, some people were calling it racist. I had to go back and read the headline. So I thought, well, I couldn't see anything racist about it. I came to the conclusion that the people read the headline but didn't bother to read the story to get context.
Dave:
Some commenters actually said that. They said, and I think I went on there as well, and said, “You should read the column.”
Jeff:
How many times do you see that, though, in the comments section or someone makes some crazy comment and then someone else says: “Did you read the story?” And they come back and say “No, but I saw the headline.”
Dave:
Yeah, like one person here actually suggested the headline should have been more like “immigration is key to Canada’s fight against COVID.” Now, why wouldn't you use that as a headline? And actually, we should clear up, was the headline we used suggested by the column writer?
Jeff:
Yes.
Dave:
So it wasn't even you. So it was the column writer … who has a ton of journalism experience and he works with immigrants and he was the founder of the Multiculturalism Centre.
Jeff:
I think the reason he used that was because the main part of that story is true. Filipino women working as nurses. And that was an important point in that column.
And maybe the most interesting point was about how these women had really come from their home country, were nurses back in their home country, and that they have to start at the bottom when they come to Canada. So I think that was reflected in the headline, was that Don Curry was trying to get people to realize that, you know, this is what's happening in our country because of this immigration pilot program and the fact that they were Filipino and they could have been from any country, really. Yeah. So, I thought that was a fine headline and I would stand by it for sure.
Dave:
But what do you think of the headline? Immigration is key to Canada's fight against covid. Do you think that would have drawn more or less people into the story?
Jeff:
I think that would have drawn less people into the story, because I think it's too general, like so many other headlines that you wouldn't differentiate. I think that with Curry’s headline, the fact that he'd mentioned it is Filipino women coming over, and that was the fact of what was happening in his story. So to make it too bland, I think wouldn't have done his story justice.
Dave:
Yeah, I agree. I would think that a generalized headline like that wouldn't have really helped the column at all.
It would be more like a statement headline, sort of a government dictate.
Jeff:
Right, exactly. It's almost … just sticking to the facts.
Dave:
But it goes to show you, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't know that.
Jeff:
Well, there's so many opinions these days that people have about writing headlines and we should hold a contest one time. So write your own headline maybe because they are a lot more difficult than I think people give it credit for, you know?
Dave:
Yeah, I know. It's an art for sure. It's just a continuing evolving art.
Jeff:
Yeah. It's not a science. I think that's important. It's an art.
If I had a couple of other things to say about headlines is that to try and use the active voice when you're doing the headline … so often I'll see in stories, “Joe Blow was arrested by police,” which is the passive voice, but if you if you're talking about active voice, the active might be Mary kicks the ball, whereas the passive is the ball was kicked by Mary. And it adds so much more impact, I think, to the headlines, if people use the active voice … because I think sometimes small things like that make a big impact on the headline, right?
I have one that kind of … got a bit of controversy going. It was when I first started with BayToday and I didn't know really the company that well. I didn't know the owner or how far to push on it. And you might remember the Moe-z-on Inn and it closed down and I went out to get a picture of it, and as I was taking the picture, the former owner drove in and so I did an interview with my picture and the headline I used was “A local strip club goes tits up.” And I was a little afraid to use it. So I called the owner of Village Media, Jeff Elgie, and I said, “You know, I don't want to create any trouble for you here, but here's the headline I want to use.” He laughed and said, “Go for it.” So you just never know.
Dave:
Is there a headline you regret?
Jeff:
Yes, well, I think the ones that I regret are the ones that I put up and then, when I read them later, I think I could have done a much better job. But in so many instances, when you have websites like BayToday in the way the world has evolved, is that you're doing so many things and you have so many balls in the air that you don't really get a chance to sit down and try and think of a really good headline. Sometimes you've just got to get the story up. And so then (later) I wish I thought of that earlier. So that's usually where my regret comes in, that I think of something much better after it's already in print.
Dave:
Yeah, well, the headlines are a funny thing. It's a little easier on the Internet because you can actually go and adjust your headline after.
Jeff:
I've had to do that even recently. Dave, you'll remember that one I put up about ‘Eat Ferris’ and that was one of the days where I had a bunch of balls in the air and I had to get it up and then didn't get a chance to reread the headline, I thought it was a big mistake. But you're right, you're able to go in and correct the headline. But with something like that people find it funny and screenshot it right away. And so the penalty lasts forever.
Dave:
Yup, yup, it does.
Jeff:
So let me ask you, did you ever have a headline you regretted?
Dave:
Oh, yeah, definitely. I was working out of Orillia for Thomson Newspapers as a regional sports editor, and there was a major storm that we lost power so the Orillia Packet and Times press wasn't able to function.
So we had to pack up everything and head down to Barrie. So I am in the car going down, I was listening to the radio writing the Jays winning the fucking, excuse me, Blue Jay's winning the World Series. Right, I'm writing the Jays winning the World Series story through listening to the radio in a car ride down to Barrie. We get down there, I'm using somebody else's desk. I'm writing the story for the front page, the headline and whatnot. We were still cutting and pasting at that point, but somehow, because we didn't have all our crew and we were kind of disorganized because of the storm, the headline on the paper the next day said the Jays won the “pennant.”
And I was the so-called sports editor, so I'm glad we don't have that one saved on the Internet.
