In an astonishing display of an acute lack of imagination, the Kenyan daily inundated its readers with article headlines hinged on the same style.
From the front page depicted above...
...the trend continued unabated, and unashamedly.
So there was this...
...and this.
That also...
...and this one too.
And there was more...
...of the same type.
It seemed not to matter which page an article was placed...
...or the subject matter.
The sport section too...got its 'unfair' share of the 'conjoined' headline format.
And that concludes this 'dumb-as' edition of Headline Writing 101.
I hope you've not learnt anything worth emulating!
Wow! someone asked me to edit a piece for them yesterday and headline had to two ideas as I quickly emailed them back with pride. When this template reoccurs throughout the paper it indeed speaks of lethargy and definitely, this should go on the list of cliche headlines that have to be shelved. Although until today it made so much sense to me, especially when the story is not that exciting and you have space that mus be filled.
ReplyDelete*my headline...
ReplyDeleteAnd to think that this repetitive headline format passed through a number of editorial hands and eyes, is the real tragedy. The letters of the alphabet are finite. But there's an almost endless number of ways they can be sensibly combined to form words that can creatively convey the intended meaning in a headline, the available space notwithstanding.
ReplyDelete