two time pulitzer prize winner gene weingarten's got beef with the "new newsroom," pointing out the loss of the art of headline creation in his article "gene weingarten article mentions lady gaga." whereas print article titles remain clever, online publications now use titles that are designed for search engine optimization. he writes:
the only really creative opportunity copy editors had was writing headlines, and they took it seriously. this gave the american press some brilliant and memorable moments, including this one, when the senate failed to convict president clinton: "close but no cigar;" and this one, when a meteor missed earth: "kiss your asteroid goodbye." there were also memorably wonderful flops, like the famous one on a food story about home canning: "you can put pickles up yourself."
...putting well-known names in headlines is considered shrewd, even if creativity suffers. early this year, the print edition of the post had this great headline on a story about conan o'brien's decision to quit rather than accept a later time slot: "better never than late." online, it was changed to "conan o'brien won't give up 'tonight show' time slot to make room for jay leno."
i have to take his side on this one. one of my favorite part of blogging is creating a witty title! "lowest of the lo" is my favorite so far!
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