A window into an editor's thought process...

A short post about what I was thinking about as I wrote a headline yesterday.

My original headline for this piece (https://cartt.ca/how-can-cbc-compete-with-digital-giants-content-budgets-the-answer-is-we-can-not-says-ceo-tait/) was something along the lines of “CBC CEO says Corp. can’t compete with digital giants” As you can see, I went with something different.

It’s a long-established way to write heads. Torque what she said a little by taking out a bit of context in order to provoke reader emotion. Headlines should be short, punchy & pull people into the story, I can hear old editors of mine say…

Part of that idea dates back to print days where physical space was limited and there needed to be room for photos and the story itself, call-out quotes and so on. So heads could not be the wordy things I eventually chose for that story…

My original headline would surely provoke an emotional response in some and draw them into reading the piece. I’ve written heads like that for years. It’s something we journalists just do. Helps with clicks, let me tell ya!...

But recently I’ve come to believe headlines like that are a disservice to readers. Heads like that are really a lie, I think. Tait didn’t say the CBC can’t compete, because it surely can in news and all sorts of other Canadian programming…

What she did say was the public broadcaster can’t compete with the massive content budgets of the likes of Netflix et al, and that’s what the question posed to her was specifically about. And she answered honestly…

So I made the decision to pull that bit of context right into the headline. It made the head longer and clunkier and in our newsletter it looks weird with so many words. But readers more and more judge the story completely by the headline…

They’re busy and distracted and might just scroll by and only read Tait doesn’t think her company can compete – and if they don’t read the rest, they miss that crucial context and come away with a false impression of what was actually said…

We’re all busy. We’re all distracted. We often judge books by their covers even though we like to say we don’t. So it’s important to me for the headline to reflect the truth and context of what was said, even if that means too many words…

It might mean fewer emotional responses and less click-throughs, but I think it better-serves readers, especially busy ones like mine, who are reading between meetings in the office…

While I will always pine for the punchy, clever, topper and hope to write many more, I’m going to work hard to deliver clarity and context in my headlines.