Headliner rhymers for the old timers

Writing newspaper headlines is an art, although it’s easier since the computer arrived in the newsroom.

The best headline writer I’ve known was the late Walter “Speedy” Travis, a crackerjack Associated Press reporter. When he retired in Watertown many years ago, the South Dakota House of Representatives honored him with a plaque on the chair he used as he covered news in the House Chamber’s makeshift press box. It might still be there.

Speedy, in his retirement years, was editor of the South Dakota American Legion newspaper. He wrote all the stories and headlines, and his headlines rhymed—something like this: Police apprehend man, money found in buried can.

I’ve collected interesting headlines over the years that didn’t rhyme but were interesting.

One appeared in the Rapid City Journal: “Rapid City Man Gets Four Years for Shooting Man Through Door.” The story doesn’t say if the man was shot through the door head or feet first.

The Journal also reported about a “Man Struck By Ax in Lower Brule.”

What part of the body comprises the lower brule, anyway? Here’s another headline involving an ax: “Enraged Cow Kills Farmer With Ax.”
How about this: “Deer Kill 37.” Is there a hunting season on humans?

The Sisseton Courier reported on a local bank that was installing digitized time, news and temperature signs with this headline: “Bank Installs TNT Signs at Two Sites.” Later, it reported, “Roberts County Spending $208,000 for Seal.” A nearby area weekly newspaper reported, “Airport Runway Headed For Court.” Yikes!

Years ago, as a newspaper publisher and editor, I wrote in my Estelline Journal about preparations for a parade during the community’s annual celebration, and I added this headline: “Firemen Wet Down the Street.” I also wrote about a man who had been in an auto accident and suffered a “lunch puncture” which was actually a lung puncture.

You probably have read about the South Dakota bar helping citizens fill out their income tax reports. One newspaper reported about the program with this headline: “Lawyers Give Poor Free Advice.”

When Brookings lawyer George Mickelson was considering running for governor, the Brookings paper’s headline told us: “Attorney Eyes Governor’s Seat.” Speaking of lawyers, how about this? “Hospital Sued by 7 Foot Doctors.”

Regarding laws, one South Dakota newspaper reported that “Legislators Want Tougher Death Penalty.”

The difficult part of writing headlines before computers was fitting them in the space assigned. Back then, each character in the alphabet corresponded to a numerical value based on the width it would consume in a headline. Most letters had a value of one. Narrower characters such as “I” were assigned a value of one-half. Wider ones like “M” had a value of one and one-half. Most punctuation marks counted as half-value. If you were lucky, the words fit the space available. If not, you needed to compose a new headline.

With computers, headline writing is simple but still requires some care. Click a key and make letters larger or smaller. But even a computer doesn’t always help, as this headline shows: “Queen Mary Having Bottom Scraped.” The ocean liner Queen Mary, with her bottom well scraped, is now on permanent display in Long Beach, Calif.

Finally, in the spirit of this column (and with my apologies to Speedy Travis):

I invite you all to take a good look
at pictures of old cars in my new car book.

It’s available at Brookings Book Company, Allegra, Ugly Duckling, the South Dakota Agricultural Heritage Museum and Pasque in Brookings. Or send $25 to Cars, PO Box 872, Brookings, S.D. 57006.