Brilliance in Newspapering

Iowa City, Iowa, is home of the University of Iowa. It's the end of the term, so the local newspaper, the Press-Citizen, wanted a hard-hitting in-depth story on life at the university.

The headline shows the value of the Press-Citizen's amazing investigative reporting abilities:

Finals Week Boosts Coffee Sales

Yeah, it takes strong undercover skills to figure out things like that.

But wait: that's not the fun part. There are many styles to add interest to the "hed" (as newspaper types call headlines), including "decks" (a subhead summarizing a particular point) and "hammers" (huge type with one or two words to grab attention). Here's how the newspaper added interest to this particular story:

Press-Citizen Hed

For the visually impaired, the deck reads thusly:

• First part of decky goes herey and here. • Second part of decky goes herey and here.

Yep, typical newspaper staff these days: no ability whatever to follow written directions.

(Source -- it still showed like that as of 19 December 2011)

Posted December 12, 2011 8:00 AM

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