A regular reader emailed a question concerning the headline of a Star-Advertiser story published yesterday.
Just wondering what your take is on the headline for the Hanabusa-Djou article, “Hanabusa optimistic, Djou gloomy“.
I think the Star-Advertiser displayed poor judgement by describing a candidate, especially a credible one, as “gloomy”.
Is this another “one paper town” type instance or was this headline fair and accurate?
I don’t think the headline was very nice or fair to Djou.
I think readers of your blog would appreciate your take.
At first glance, the headline might have been clearer if it read, “Hanabusa optimistic, Djou gloomy on economy.”
But the story had a subhead which conveyed the same context.
“The Republican sees economic slack while the Democrat is more hopeful about recovery”
According to the dictionary I consulted, “gloomy” is a synonym for “pessimistic.” That sounds like an accurate assessment of Djou’s view on the economy as reported in the accompanying story.
Read together, I do think the headline and subhead were fair and, apparently, accurate.
Anyone else see it differently? If so, please weigh in.
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While I don’t like Djou’s past quid pro quo dealings with developers while he was in office (remember the Hale Alii height limit exemption that he introduced while getting big campaign contributions) I still find this headline is unfair to him and SA should not have run it.
On my phone’s browser, there was no subhead. unless you click on the link, you are left with the impression created by the headline alone. I at first would have guessed the story was about each candidate’s view on odds for success.
A moment ago as i was starting to write this i paused to explain this discussion to someone sitting nearby. my explanation began with mention of the headline in question. seconds further into my explanation i was interrupted with, “that’s what i thought. I thought the story was about Djou being gloomy about his chances of winning.”
I admit, I read that headline but didn’t read the story. I assumed it was about his pessimism at his chances of winning, and I bet a lot of other people did too. In fact, it is only through Ian’s blog that it discovered it wasn’t
I should have read closer. The clarifying subheadline trick is beneath the dignity of a real newspaper.
The headline does not matter. Vote for Hanabusa and support the President.
Misleading.
And Ian, one of the standing rules in the S-A copy desk (which they ignored in this instance) is that a headline and an XS (subhead) need to be clearly understandable on their own.
That is, you shouldn’t need to read both in order to fully understand the title.
Frank Bridgewater made this point several times over the years I was there when the rule was ignored. I wouldn’t be surprised if the conversation on this blog about this instance doesn’t prompt him to do it again.