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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Easy question.
If a large, front-page headline in Honolulu’s only daily newspaper today read:
“Djou optimistic, Hanabusa gloomy”
Would it have been fair?
Terribly prejudicial, imo. A headline to the effect that “Candidates differ on views of economy” would have been neutral and equally informative.
This kind of bias is par for the course with the S-A. It’s also evident in their coverage of UH, through which they support and advance the Kim/etc. agenda to humiliate everyone other than the Athletic Department, which remains under her and her cronies’ political protective cover. Typical is the headline on Borecca’s column today in which Borecca refers to the Wonder Blunder as a “misunderstanding” and the headline writer escalates it to “scandal.”
It confirms your bias, therefore you judge it to be unbiased.
Sorry Ian, this does prove your bias. The heading was clearly prejudicial.
I had the same thought as your reader. It was an unfair headline. Before reading, I thought the headline meant “as to their respective chances in the election.” Only after reading did I realize it meant “as to their economic outlook.”
But maybe I’m not objective – I prefer Djou a a candidate.
I think there are some at the SA who probably don’t realize they are doing it – sort of a blind spot to their lack of objectivity. They don’t see it in time and, before you know it, some unfortunate choice of words comes out. It looks like poor impulse control but it might be more like Tourettes Syndrome – sort of a hybrid that strikes …… out of nowhere in unintended written outbursts (like this) and hard to stop. We could have a telethon.
First impressions matter. Relying on the subhead to provide context necessary to understand the meaning of the headline seems biased to me.
To me, the headline was inappropriate and prejudicial.
Its UNSTATED implication was that the differing moods were tied to the candidates’ chances of getting elected.
I’m no fan of Djou, but he was treated very poorly by the S-Ad-vertiser.
I’m a fairly good writer, and have published quite a few commentaries and letters to editor over the years. After the first few ended up with headlines which I considered inaccurate (or even hostile), I began including my own headline with the essay. Maui News usually used the headline exactly as I wrote it. But both Star-Bulletin and Advertiser always created a headline totally different from what I submitted. And because my essays were often contrary to the newspapers’ editorial positions, the headlines they wrote were often vague or inaccurate or even contrary to the headline I had offered and contrary to the clear intent of the essay’s content. I don’t know why the newspaper feels it must hire a headline writer when the writer of an article should be able to write his own headline, especially if he’s a professional journalist. A person hired to be a headline writer will always feel impelled to rewrite every headline simply because that’s how he makes a living — gotta do something to justify that salary. First rule of bureaucracy: The work will expand to fill the time available.
Regarding the specific headline under discussion here: I agree it’s hostile to Djou. The first impression it created in my mind (isn’t that what a headline is supposed to do?) might be expressed this way: Hanabusa smiles, Djou scowls. A second glance impression might be expressed this way: Hanabusa upbeat (expecting victory), Djou downbeat (worried he will lose).
Ken, first off, you didn’t publish your letters and commentaries in the Star-Bulletin — I did. And as someone who changed some of your suggested headlines, I have to say, your comments about why they were changed are ridiculous. If you were a journalist, you would know that. (You’d also know that newspapers don’t hire “headline writers.”)
And you should know this anyway, because I explained it to you.
As usual, I’m insulted that you would impugn my ethics in this way. Knock it off. My opinion of what you write had nothing to do with the headlines I wrote, for your letters or anyone else’s. There is no vast conspiracy to silence Ken Conklin.
The writer of a submitted commentary or article — whether he is from the community or works at the paper — doesn’t know the column width or word count of a headline — how much space he has not just for the headline, but for the words on each line of the headline. The writer usually submits headlines that are much too long and/or don’t match the layout that the page designer is stuck with.
The suggested headlines also usually contain grammatical errors, break basic rules of journalism, or contain other errors or biases that we tried to avoid. (Past tense because I no longer work there.)
I got tired of explaining this to you because you never accepted simple facts and always insisted that I was a tool being used by a certain cultural or political group. I have a feeling this isn’t going to make any difference to you, either, but at least some of Ian’s readers might get it.
(I apologize for any typos/grammatical errors of my own. I just woke up.)
Because I am a Democrat to the bone., I assumed that Djou was being described in the headline as to his chances of being (re)-elected. Thus, I was taken aback to find out that the word “gloomy” described his take on the economy, not on his (re)-election.
The headline submitted by Richard Gozinya would have been far more accurate as well as more appropriate.
See – sometimes Da Goppers and Da Burros can agree on something.
Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence, especially when it comes to the SA.
Which is not to say that there isn’t editorial bias, but this probably isn’t one of those situations.
I attended a talk by Paul Brewbaker earlier this year where he mentioned that the local papers headlines for stories based on interviews with him are more often misleading than accurate.
A potential new and desperate newspaper marketing strategy!
Force people to read a story as a way to correct a misleading, poorly written headline.
(probably not, but the consistency is interesting)
Moving on, a new episode of the raw and rowdy reality show/political spoof, Tom and Eric Smackdown, is slated to premier at the Campaign Spending Commission tomorrow, with special guest stars. Will fur and fines fly? Will voters cancel the series? Will there be guest appearances on Law and Order?
I look at the headline and thought it was odd. I never read the story. I then spent thirty seconds flipping through the rest of paper by the trash can. After that, the paper went right in the can. I guess that is the benefit of being targeted with the $15 per year promotional subscription.
How did you manage that? I’d feel better renewing at that rate.
it just came in the mail — perhaps I am in the proximity of the neighborhood they were targeting, but I am certainly not in the demographic
in danger of being sarcastic (oh no!!!!!!) i took advantage of a similar SA discount promo a few months ago.
for the most part, i feel like i’m wasting paper in the year 2012. oh well.