Headstrong

This week's nomination for headline stating the obvious: "Lack of sidewalks could stymie movement." In all fairness, I think the headline writer was trying to be cute, "movement" actually referring to an advocacy group trying to encourage more walking to school. But it takes awhile for cleverness to sink in -- most readers probably scratched their heads until they got a few paragraphs into the story (if they did) The story itself is interesting:

According to the Federal Highway Administration's Safe Routes to School Web site, the decline in walking has increased traffic congestion and harmed air quality around schools and has added to the epidemic of childhood obesity across the country.

NIRPC's Barloga said Northwest Indiana's air quality problems are a good reason walking school buses would be a positive move in the region.

Having parents lined up in vans and SUVs outside schools to drop off and pick up one child, only to drive a few blocks home, is "very illogical," he said.

So, here is today's newspaper quiz (which migh also be of interest to those of you having to deal with blog post headers): What is the purpose of a headline?

If you said, "To make the reader want to read the story," sorry, wrong answer. The story and headline over it aren't competing with everything else the reader might be interested in. They are competing against the other stories and headlines in the same newspaper. If you cleverly lure the reader into a story with your headline, your are merely reducing the amount of time he will devote to the rest of the paper's offerings.

The correct answer is: To give the reader enough information to decide if he wants to read the story. That is not a small distinction. It's the difference between treating readers as marks to be seduced -- as the carnival barker lures in customers -- and treating them as equal partners in the exchange of information. Many attempts at creative headline writing fail because they sacrifice clarity in the pursuit of cleverness.