line is to inform the reader briefly of what the news that follows is about. Sometimes headlines contain elements of appraisal, ie, they show the reporter's or the paper's attitude to the facts reported. English headlines are short and catching, they compact the gist of news stories into a few eye-snaring words. A skillfully turned out headline tells a story, or enough of it, to arouse or satisfy the reader `s curiosity; (George C. Bastian, 1956. Editing the Day` s News. NY) In most of the English and American newspapers and magazines sensational headlines are quite common. The practice of headline writing is different with different editions. In many newspapers, there is, as a rule, one headline to a news item, whereas some others more often than not carry a news item or an article with two or three headlines.headline in British and American newspapers and magazines is an important vehicle of both information and appraisal, and editors give it special attention, admitting that few read beyond the headline, or at best the lead. To lure the reader into going through the whole of the item or at least a greater part of it takes a lot of skill and ingenuity on the part of the headline writer. p align="justify"> For examples: BUSH IS `JUST AS BAD AS SADDAM 'While President George W. Bush drew applause in America for his plans to destroy the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, in Baghdad yesterday there were only jeers and scoffs.
"Bah. These are just gestures that mean nothing, "said Zaineb Hamid, a 30-year-old typist.
Lead
The most important structural element of a story is the lead (or "intro" in the UK) - the story is first, or leading, sentence. (Some American English writers use the spelling lead, from the archaic English, to avoid confusion with the printing press type formerly made from the metal lead or the related typographical term leading . states that "an effective lead is a brief, sharp statement of the story's essential facts. The lead is usually the first sentence, or in some cases the first two sentences, and is ideally 20-25 words in length. The top-loading principle (putting the most important information first - see inverted pyramid section below) applies especially to leads, but the unread ability of long sentences constrains the lead's size. This makes writing a lead an optimization problem, in which the goal is to articulate the most encompassing and interesting statement that a writer can make in one sentence, given the material with which he or she has to work. While a rule of thumb says the lead should answer most or all of the five Ws, few leads can fit all of these. "bury the lead" in news style refers to beginning a description with details of secondary importance to the reade...
