Each month I share with you the winners of the Eagle’s headline contest. I realized, however, that I’ve never explained how they’re chosen. So, here’s how it works.
Each day members of the copy desk comb through that day’s paper and nominate headlines they think should be included. If someone else points out one they like, it’s tossed into the mix. At the end of the month I look through the nominees and whittle it down to 15 or so finalists.
When I’m done, Jennifer Comes, one of our copy editors, whips up the ballots, which she distributes to people in the newsroom that have experience writing headlines. The judges rank their picks for the top three headlines and Jennifer then tallies the scores.
The criteria for what makes a good headline is up to each judge, but there are some generally accepted points to consider. Does it give readers the information they need but still pull them into the story? Is it engaging, have interesting word choices and avoid cliches and the obvious? Does it work with the photos and match the tone of the story?
These points are particularly important in the narrow-width or big, splashy headlines. Those have a lot of work to do in a little space.
Which brings us to the contest for November’s headlines. Jennifer handed out the ballots this week and I got to thinking: Why not show you Editor’s Desk Devotees (yeah, I know, I need to come up with a better name) all of the finalists? Most of the headlines are below and you can click on the images to see larger versions. If you’re so inclined, use the comments section to tell me which ones you would pick. Next week we can compare your choices with the newsroom’s.
One last note. Our archiving system ate two of the pages, which means I don’t have JPEGs of them.
The headlines were:
Roasted corn
which ran with the story of KU’s smackdown of Nebraska, and
Recycling: A curbed issue?
about, well, recycling.
Here are the rest.
— Michael
