Propelio Academy Forum

So, the modern reader gets to know the press by the headlines. In print media, they glance from the top left corner of the page to the bottom right, then somewhere in the top right corner, then to the middle of the page (researchers have not been able to identify a clear, constant algorithm for this).

Time, you see, the modern reader is short (and patience - too), so only so, only on titles. And if he didn't like them, they didn't touch his mind and soul - he'll just turn the page...

It is the same in online media. The only difference is that the reader's eyes move here as the designer instructed, as a rule, vertically, from top to bottom, along the news column. When the reader's eye does not stumble upon an interesting and bright headline, he continues walking. Or else he goes on to another site. This is a total fiasco.

Lucky headline - not even half the case, often - is all "case.

A catchy headline can become a separate song, a separate work of art. Often a piece of fiction.

Meanwhile, successful titles are not always easy. Sometimes, coming up with it becomes a real torture for the editor: or subject too hackneyed, or - the muse gone to the others. Or maybe it's a bit of both.

I know that some editorial boards of big newspapers get creative: they put up something like an electronic screen in the smoking room or tea-party rooms, displaying the main news of the issue. And every journalist, "kidding", "frolics", in a free flight of fancy, comes up with his own version of the headline. Usually, they are as bright and talented as you could never get during a long, tense sitting at a desk.

Headlines are the face of the story, the face of the newspaper (as well as the overall design, the layout). A headline can not only draw the news out but, if it's bad, ruin it.

Meanwhile, I'll tell you a "horror story": In my editorial practice, there have been cases where journalists at the beginning of their journalistic career didn't learn how to write headlines for stories and they ended up developing an inferiority complex of sorts. And after being in journalism for more than ten years, they still make their stories without a headline, leaving the choice of the headline up to the editor.

So you have to learn to write headlines - right away, not put off to a good mood and more experience... And then... learn to write them all your life.

For example, you can't say after twenty or thirty years in journalism: I'm super at this.

Once you tell yourself that, life will prove you wrong.