Headlines, headlines, headlines

If there is one thing writing headlines has taught me, if you don't have the craft for it, it is a very difficult thing to do.

I am the type of writer that wants to always include too much information and have a hard time boiling things down to just the necessities. Although I'm finally get better at that in my articles, there is no way I'm any near that level with headlines.

A headline must be a mini-article. Without a headline, the article is nothing and no one is going to want to read it.

I tend to always want to create headlines that will make people want to read by using gruesome, often the most vivid words to grab attention. I may also think to do that because I'm a broadcast news writer and must always be writing to video.

At any rate, one of my favorite headlines was also the example of good editing I selected for class. In the March 21 Pittsburgh Tribune-Review the headline was Reality Check - however the "check" was a checkmark. I thought that was clever and since it was for a sports article, it was creative because I'd be used to seeing something like that in more of a political writing atmosphere than sports.