Headlines and deadlines

By Tony Deyal

A MAN, already unfortunate enough to be saddled with the surname Cockburn, decided to get married and to inform the newspapers that he and his new bride were going on their honeymoon. The subsequent headline read, "Cockburns off on wedding trip". A newspaper called the Northern Echo ran a similarly titillating headline, "Honeymoon? If we can fit it in, says couple".

In 1982, Mechanical Engineering ran the headline, "New screwing method cuts fatigue and increases productivity" while a New York newspaper announced, " Father of 7 shot dead. Mistaken for rabbit". A British newspaper, always anxious to criticise the short-comings of the United States, announced gravely, "Incest more common than thought in US".

The Pacific Rural News pointed out, "Sterility may be inherited" and the prestigious Times Educational Supplement drew attention to the shocking fact that, "Five girls under sixteen have abortions everyday".

Every newspaper has made similar errors at some time. The Daily Telegraph screamed, "Nurse raped" By Our Crime Staff. The Weekend Australian, giving a news update, said, "One legged escapee rapist still on the run".

Then there was the South China Morning Post headline, "Body in garden was a plant, says wife". The Times did better in 1984 with the headline, "Ousted RSPCA man says he was scapegoat".

Generally, headlines are serious business. However, headlines are acts of marketing and not of reporting. They are intended to sell the newspaper by giving the prospective reader a sensationalised sense of the contents of an article. Generally, and unless the newspaper is a very small one, the writer of an article and the writer of a headline are two different persons. The headline writer has severe space and time constraints in which to operate. This accounts for many of the errors as well as the strident tone of many headlines.

My favourite headline story is really old. It concerns a poor, unsophisticated priest who took seriously his vow of poverty, chastity and obedience, and a donkey. The priest wanted to raise money for his church and, on being told that there was a fortune in horse-racing, decided to purchase a horse and enter it in the races. However, at the local auction, the going price for horses was so high that he ended up buying a donkey instead. He figured that since he had it, he might just as well go ahead and enter it in the races.

By that time, lacking the much-needed subvention from the Government, and facing competition from English and American horse-racing in the Racing Pools, the standard of the local thoroughbred horses had dropped. To the priest's surprise, the donkey came in third. The next day the local paper carried this headline, "Priest ass shows". The priest was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the next day's race, and this time it won. The paper then read, "Priest's ass out in front'.

The local archbishop, newly-arrived and empowered, by Rome or Utah or wherever the headquarters of his faith resided, to engage in massive house-cleaning to get rid of such practices, was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the priest not to enter the donkey in another race. Unfortunately the priest could not lie and when asked by the media why he was withdrawing his donkey from the race, told the truth. The paper's headline the next day read, "Archbishop scratches priest's ass".

This was too much for the archbishop. He was outraged. Seeing himself as the chief executive officer (CEO) and not chief ecclisi-ass-tical officer (CEO2), he ordered the priest to get rid of the donkey. The priest decided to give the donkey to a nun in a nearby convent. The headline the next day read, "Nun has best ass in town".

The archbishop was too tough a person to faint. Firing a broadside via a canonical order, he instructed the nun that she could not keep the donkey. Needing money for the convent, the nun sold the donkey to a farmer for $10. By that time, media interest was extremely high and all crimes and scandals had been replaced on the front page by the donkey business. The next day the headline on the front-page screamed, "Nun sells ass for $10".

This was too much for the archbishop. He ordered the nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the Savannah where he could see for himself that it was loose and unhampered. Next day, the headline in the paper read, "Nun announces her ass is wild and free".

The archbishop left for Dominica the next day.

Tony Deyal was last seen reading the newspapers and commenting on headlines like, "Queen Mary having her bottom scraped", "Nuns drop out: Bishops agree to aid them", "Columnist gets urologist in trouble with his peers", and "Prostitutes appeal to Pope".

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