Bad breaks in headlines. Does anyone care anymore?

No one where I work seems to and I've noticed a lot of bigger papers don't seem to either? Eliminating bad breaks in headlines was drilled into my head in my editing classes and at the student paper in college. Yet at the places I've worked, people either don't even know what a bad break is or don't really care as long as it fits the space.

Personally, I think they look and read terrible and may take two or three glances to actually understand what they're saying. Thoughts?

 

Aside from a couple of iron-clad rules on this -- I won't break a proper noun over two lines or split a noun phrase (peanut butter) -- I've stopped letting blind adherence to the no-breaks approach keep me from writing an otherwise clear, on-point headline. There is considerable evidence that readers are not at all interrupted by hanging prepositions and the like. Time and energy spent on verbal gymnastics with no tangible benefit are best expended on better all-around editing.

 

This may
be one of
those very
dumb threads












Just kidding. Bad breaks bug me, as do multideck heads where any line, but especially the first, is a lot longer than the rest. But like BW said, time and space (especially for 1-column heads) often make bad breaks inevitable.

 

I'm with "Clever." One of the first things I was taught and one of the things the veterans beat on more than anything was danglers. I still don't like seeing it, but as we've changed desk people and years have passed it no longer seems to bother anyone else (along with a lot of other things).

 

How about hyphenation breaks in headlines? Anyone like those?

 

No.

 

Just
being
sarcas-
tic

 

Wiseass.

 

Split prepositional phrases don't bug me in the least.
Absolutely no split hyphenated words/phrases, nor proper nouns.

I would definitely rather spend my time making sure the hed was clear and accurate than worrying if I ended a line with "of."

 

you may be trying a little sarcasm but that was acceptable at my place before i took the big chair. embarrassed the shit out of me. abbreviations in headlines used to be ok, too. aaarrrggghhh!!!

 

The Wall Street Journal National Employment Weekly had this gem of a headline back in 1994. I saw it in National Lampoon's True Facts book but can't find it online to post. I believe it broke like this:

How Great Candidates
Blow Job Interviews

 

We care... depending on what time of night it is.