Monday, August 17, 2009

The State of Headline Writing/UPDATED

UPDATE 2: Incensed Copy Editor (See below) provides this similar link, to The Gleaner in Jamaica.

Would a person familiar with American English or the United States in general have written this headline?

An incensed copy editor e-mailed this today, asking, justifiably, whether the AP is outsourcing its headline-writing needs to other countries or whether this is really the state of American journalism these days. This assumes that this is an AP headline, and not one produced by the source newspaper. UPDATE: as Henry Fuhrmann points out, the version on AP's own page says "Mass." at this point, though it's possible it was changed. And when I Google the entire headline, the only place it shows is on newsday.com, which means the source is unclear.

Either way, it's absolutely horrible and the writer should think about whether journalism is the right career path.


US state rejects Madoff settlement offer.

Also, as the e-mailer notes this morning, Massachusetts is a commonwealth, not a state, so it's Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, not secretary of state.

Come on, people.



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