The goofs this time (2)
In our discussion this month, I take you through some of the goofs I spotted in headlines in the inside pages of the Daily Trust (daily and weekly). The headline is the most important element in a newspaper story. It serves at least four fundamental functions: a) it advertises or promotes the story; b) it invites readers; c) it makes a promise that the story is supposed to deliver and d) for the busy modern world, the headline is a fair summary of the story it promotes.
The headline is an important marketing strategy in the print media. It can draw readers to stories. But danger lurks because it can also put off readers. A poorly written headline is as bad as a false or misleading headline. A false or misleading headline is deceitful and fictitious. Often, it has nothing to do with the story. Its unprofessional purpose is to help sell the publications. As the disappointed reader throws away the newspaper he bought through the inviting false or misleading headline in disgust, the publisher chuckles all the way to the bank.
False and misleading headlines flourished, particularly in the news and junk magazines during the heady days of the June 12 crisis. Such headlines achieved the purpose of making people buy some outlandish fiction. The discerning soon saw that they were being sold outright lies and falsehood. They were turned off by the reckless resort to unprofessionalism. Many a publisher lived to regret this unprofessional indulgence.
Mercifully, that era is gone. No newspapers or magazines in the country today stoop that low to put their commercial interests above the more important imperatives of national interest and their professional integrity. May those days never return.
The rules of headline writing are quite simple. One, use an active verb in the present tense. Where the active verb is not used, it must be so understood: Governors (are) to pay backlog of salaries.
Two, make it short and to the point: Mandela is dead.
Three, make it an accurate summary of the story: Boko Haram kills 13 fishermen
Four, obey the basic rules of grammar and syntax.
There is, however, some flexibility in casting headlines for features stories. The headline writer can take some literary liberty but he must do so with some restraint. So, on to the goofs. June 23, page 11: Controversy has continued to trail thunderbolt attack which chopped off the hand of an 11-year old…
It was not likely the thunderbolt attacked the little girl. An attack is a planned verbal or physical assault. The thunderbolt struck the girl.
Saudi king’s son plotted effort to oust….
Two errors. Plot, not plotted. And hey, effort is not plotted; you make an effort; you do not plot it. The headline should have been: Saudi king’s son plots father’s ouster.
The lead to a story published at page 11 of June 11, reads: “Following the collapse of the bridge after a heavy down pour.”
This tautology is a common but embarrassing mistake. Down pour describes a heavy rain. There is no need to qualify it with the adjective heavy. It is either after a heavy rainfall or after a down pour. Not both.
June 11, page 47: Sports programmes, a gateway from youth restiveness.
A gateway leads to, not away from. The headline writer wants to say that sports programmes help to curb youth restlessness. Why didn’t he? Unlike Alice in Wonderland, we are not allowed the liberty of insisting that our words must mean what we say.
June 18, page 17: A tale of Kebbi rice farmers turned millionaires.
A tale? An unfortunate choice of words. Newspapers are not in the business of telling tales. That is the province of fiction writers. Newspapers are in the business of serving the public with facts as their editors and reporters know them. The changing fortunes of the Kebbi peasant rice farmers is a fact. It is the kind of story that would perk up the interest of peasant rice farmers and rice merchants in other states of the federation. So, the headline should have been: The story of Kebbi rice farmers turned millionaires.
The story itself was poorly written. The peasant farmers did not suddenly become rich. Each of them has been in the business of rice farming for a long time. Their background would tell the story of their gradual rise from poverty to wealth. It is a human interest story. Told properly, it would excite public interest beyond Kebbi State. The proper way to tell a story of this nature is to tell it, using one peasant farmer’s experience as the peg for the story. His story would be typical. You then weave in the stories of some selected farmers.
The Daily Trust on Sunday has introduced an interesting series called reminiscences in which it takes on former very important personalities who are no longer in the news and who face the inconvenience faced by all men born of women: oblivion. I find the series fascinating. On June 4, page 9, the paper published the reminiscences of Alhaji Sani Sami, Emir of Zuru. His royal highness is a retired major-general. The paper goofed with the use of Sami’s photograph in army uniform. It was inappropriate.
On page 46 of the same issue of the newspaper, we find this: Cholera, famine and girls sold into marriage for food.
Really? Sometimes, dire financial circumstances sadly force some parents to sell their children and force their daughter into marriage. But the idea of anyone selling cholera and famine “into marriage for food” is beyond me.
July 9, page 2: “Cult groups are surfacing in Jos, making lives uneasy for residents while their atrocities are promising tough for security agencies to check.”
I can see the hands of the printer’s devil here. Promising has no business in the story; what does is the word, proving. Pox on the devil.
April 30, page 55: APC would have lost 2019 with Muslin-Muslim ticket - Rev Dangiwa.
Foul. Surely, we cannot accept that the 2019 general election results are already in the bag. This is pure carelessness on the part of the headline writer. The Rev gentleman was referring to the 2015 general elections.
July 31, (Daily) page 10: Reps query customs over staff sack.
The headline is an important marketing strategy in the print media. It can draw readers to stories. But danger lurks because it can also put off readers. A poorly written headline is as bad as a false or misleading headline
Our lower legislative chamber is the House of Representatives. Headline writers like to shorten that to Reps as in the headline above. Should reps take singular or plural verb? Reps does not refer to individual members of the house. It is a collective noun and refers to the house as a block. So, singular verb please.
July 15, pages 4 - 5: Nigeria’s newest flood of tears.
The story says, “The rains are here again and with them floods.”
The headline makes no sense. Floods are typically devastating. People who lose their property to them cannot but grieve and shed tears. But this story is not about the consequences of the floods. It is about the floods. Even if it were about the consequences of floods, there is no way the tears shed by the victims of the floods could become a flood. It is sometimes good to write a story from the perspective of the consequences of a natural or man-made disaster but we must not lose the sense of proportion.
July 26, page 3: Osinbajo inaugurates ministers today.
Not likely. Ministers are not inaugurated. They are sworn in by the president.
August 2, page 3: FG to restrict residence permit.
Another typical mistake. What the federal government gives to expatriates who qualify to reside in our country is the resident’s permit.