'I fixed that for you': Why mainstream headlines keep failing
Plus: one journalist's brave plunge into independence; and my rant about a supposedly positive article about Buffalo
There are so many huge, overarching problems in American media right now — the defunding of public broadcasting, the shocking staff losses at the Washington Post, the endless supply of cowardice, especially by big broadcasting corporations — that it may seem silly to focus on a single headline or news alert.
Still, I had to silently cheer when I saw the political scientist Norman Ornstein’s pointed correction of a recent ABC News social media alert.
Here is the propaganda-like original that he found in need of correction: “With a pair of golden scissors and a bagpipe escort, President Trump cut the ribbon for Trump International Links Aberdeen in Scotland on Tuesday.”
Ornstein’s proposed fix:
“Violating the Constitution and his promise not to be involved in his businesses, President Trump uses taxpayer dollars and the color of an ‘official’ act to hawk his own properties, in this case a golf course in Scotland.”
Shaking my head over the complete lack of public mission in ABC’s original wording, I sent it to a friend, a former copy editor who has written many a headline himself over the years. His comment: “The U.S. network TV divisions have lost their mind, nerve and soul all at once.”
Hard to argue. But it’s not just network TV. “Fixed that for you,” is something of a meme these days. Observers rightly object — and propose changes — to headlines and news alerts that deliver a soft-focus, missing-the-point, safe-as-milk version of national politics.
Often, these headlines seem designed to be inoffensive, especially to Donald Trump and his allies. We can’t hurt the feelings of the wrecking ball, after all.
Last year, during election season, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo pointedly examined headlines about the two presidential candidates. One, on Kamala Harris was negative and disparaging, as it described her practice of doing what every politician has always done, which is to try to stay on message when dealing with questions she’d rather not answer: “In interviews, Kamala Harris Continues to Bob and Weave.”
Right next to it was a headline that took a piece of Trumpian racism and turned it into lofty, vaguely intellectual terms: “In remarks about migrants, Donald Trump invoked his long-held fascination with genes and genetics.” What prompted this? Trump’s comments on a right-wing talk show that some migrants who had crossed the U.S. border were murderers and that this tendency is “in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”
Marshall’s comment on these juxtaposed headlines: “The arrangement and editorial gloss may stand for, capture the journalism about the entire campaign.”
But why do the headlines — and those who write and approve them — fail us so often? It’s partly the desire not to offend, to play it safe. It’s partly a sad lack of apparent understanding, or a willful misunderstanding, of what’s unfolding in front of our eyes as Trump goes full-autocrat. And it’s partly (now I’m being kind) the innate challenges of taking a complicated subject, making sense of it, and expressing it in a few words.
In this third category, there’s room for interpretation while presenting basic facts.
Take these three examples from about a week ago — all very different headlines on the same news about the U.S. economy, based on the same set of facts
The Washington Post: “Economy grew at a strong 3.0 percent annual pace in the second quarter, a reversal from earlier this year.”
The Wall Street Journal: “The U.S. economy returned to growth last quarter, with GDP increasing at a 3 percent annualized rate, largely due to trade swings.”
The New York Times: “U.S. economic growth softened in the first half of the year, as tariffs weighed on consumers and businesses.”
Parker Molloy, who writes the incisive newsletter The Present Age, has written smartly on headlines for years. She makes the point that headlines really matter because so many readers don’t get any farther than those initial words.
Check out her prescriptive 2019 piece, co-written with Beth Cope, about how news organizations can do better.
See also former Chicago Tribune editor and savvy press critic Mark Jacob here, specifically on New York Times headlines in which wording creates a “safe space” for the Times.
I think it helps to point these out. Readers, I’d love it if you’d send me examples of headlines and news alerts that drive you nuts.
Separately, I don’t know the journalist Barry Malone, but I was impressed by this longtime journalist’s recent move from a perch at Reuters — he was most recently deputy editor of the Thompson-Reuters Foundation, after a long career reporting from around the globe — to start a Substack newsletter, Proximities, in order to focus on under-reported international stories.
One of those, he’s convinced, is the lack of coverage of the number of Palestinian journalists who’ve been killed in Gaza. That stands at record numbers but doesn’t get much ink.
“It’s a big risk,” he told me about his recent move, “but I want to be true to what journalism is supposed to do.” Please check out, and consider supporting, Barry Malone’s new Substack venture, Proximities, linked above.
Finally, allow me to vent about a story that many people forwarded to me over the past few days because they know I’m from Buffalo, and lived there for most of my life, including while I was the editor of the Buffalo News for 13 years. It’s a Wall Street Journal piece about Buffalo natives who are returning to the city, focused partly on a couple who bought a $3.5 million house, setting a real estate sales record for New York State’s second largest city.
The story is replete with the typical nonsense that Big Journalism has been repeating about Buffalo forever — that the city is mostly about heavy snowfall, a decimated manufacturing economy, and an NFL team that has never won a Super Bowl.
“Loving Buffalo is hard. Staying away is harder.” That was the print headline.
The notion that Buffalo is hard to love is such a tired take. I’ve lived in Manhattan for well over a decade and spent years in Washington DC, so I think I have some critical distance on my hometown. I certainly don’t find it hard to love.
This summer I once again spent some time in Western New York. I have watched stunning sunsets, I have kayaked on Lake Erie, I have enjoyed a great meal in a Greek restaurant on Elmwood Avenue as a stream of naked bicycle riders went whooping by, I have listened to live music at an outdoor cafe and have hung out with the brilliant Buffalo-born novelist, Lauren (“City of Light”) Belfer, who remains true to her hometown in many ways. Earlier this year, I helped celebrate the new motto of the Buffalo and Erie County Library system: “Profoundly Public.” In doing so, I appreciated once again that the libraries have their own dedicated line in the county budget to protect this important asset. And I often have watched friends who have traveled the world be utterly awed by the church where I grew up: Our Lady of Victory Basilica in Lackawanna.
I guess this Journal story counts as favorable publicity for Buffalo and I hate to seem churlish. But I wish the Journal had been a little more sophisticated and maybe dug a tiny bit deeper than focusing on a high-priced house and a bunch of warmed over cliches. (Granted, it did acknowledge the pleasant summer weather, something that got national attention last week when Buffalo became the last city in the contiguous U.S. never to have the temperature hit 100 degrees.)
Rant over. Readers, what’s bothering you in the media you’re encountering? What misguided headlines have you seen? What’s getting overplayed and underplayed? Thanks so much, as always, for your support and interest in the connection between journalism and democracy.
My background: I am a Lackawanna, NY native who started my career as a summer intern at the Buffalo News, my hometown daily. After years as a reporter and editor, I was named the paper’s first woman editor in chief in 1999, and ran the 200-person newsroom for almost 13 years. Starting in 2012, I served as the first woman “public editor” of the New York Times — an internal media critic and reader representative — and later was the media columnist for the Washington Post. These days, I write here on Substack, as well as for the Guardian US, and teach an ethics course at Columbia Journalism School. I’ve also written two books and won a few awards, including three for defending First Amendment principles.
The purpose of ‘American Crisis’: My aim is to use this newsletter (it started as a podcast in 2023) to push for the kind of journalism we need for our democracy to function — journalism that is accurate, fair, mission-driven and public-spirited. That means that I point out the media’s flaws and failures when necessary.
What I ask of you: Last fall, I removed the paywall so that everyone could read and comment. I thought it was important in this dire moment and might be helpful. If you are able to subscribe at $50 a year or $8 a month, or upgrade your unpaid subscription, that will help to support this venture — and keep it going for all. Thank you!
I really like Parker Molloy’s work — I’m a paying subscriber — but I’ll tell you what I’ve told her.
The argument that “many people don’t read past the headlines” plays into the Times’s hands. It lets them stand there, arms folded, with that Timesian smirk and say “Well, you should read past the headlines. In fact you should subscribe!”
I worked in newsrooms for 30 years. The first day, I was told that headline writers were the best and most important writers in the newsroom, because of the responsibility they have. My fellow trainees and I then went through two weeks of work on editing but mostly on writing headlines. And the real point of that training — even beyond writing better headlines — was to look at each other’s work and realize that every story could have five different headlines, none of them technically incorrect, that could mean wildly different things. And to show us the power and responsibility that we had.
So when someone from the Times, or someone defending the Times, says it’s “just a headline,” I think the proper response is “don’t give me that. You know %^*+ing well what you’re doing there.” There’s no such thing as a default headline. Each and every one is a conscious choice by multiple people.
My absolutely favorite story about Buffalo occurred in late 2022 when a devastating snowstorm hit the city around Christmas. A group of 10 Korean visitors was stranded and rescued by a Buffalo family, who housed the visitors for several days. The rescuers happened to be fans of Korean food and had a pantry stocked with assorted specialties. The stranded travelers took advantage of this wonderful situation and cooked a variety of Korean foods for their hosts.
Incredible luck, and perfect example of Buffalo as the “City of Good Neighbors.”