Barry Bonds headlines (real ones)

WOW. Not sure where I've been the last few days, but I come back to see Jerry Salt in only his seventh day as an SJ member. What a breathe of fresh air.
"Hey your hedlines suck"
Okay Jerry got anything better?
"Yeah I do...try this sweet submission I made: 'Barry's World'"
OOOH Jerry, you have awed us with you're creativity.
"But uhhh, I , uh, never, uhhh. I didn't say I sould use that. Uh."
Oh, then why did you post it?
"Cuz I twanted, to, uh, see... ummm. Well yall's heds suck worse."
Okay, thanks for playing.
"Yeah your hedlines suck. I wouldn't submit anything so unoriginal, and can we forget I said Barry's World, cuz I'm not that unoriginal you know."
Sure Barry, errr, Jerry.
"Oh did I mention your hedlines sucked?"

Oh Jerry, and just so you can have some more "Your hedline sucks" banter, ours was going to be "One Giant Feat." I didn't write it, and I wasn't there when we sent the paper to press, so I'm not even sure that's what it was, but that's what is was looking like.

 

Tons of people think he's an asshole too, probably more than think he cheated. Does that mean that this headline would be OK and not editorializing?:

Jackass hits 756*

If we, as journalists, give validity to the "opinions of the masses" through editorialization of news content, we've devalued who we are and what we do. Placing our opinion on news content (756* would be just that because it makes an assumption of guilt) undermines our credibility and feeds the hatred for our estate. In a column, fire away, it's all on the table there. But in strict news coverage of this (which your thump headline almost always will be in this case) stick to facts.

P.S. What little respect I had left for SI.com may have been shot with this one.

 

756*

Bonds creams record-setting blast,
clears Aaron on career homers list

/wasn't really sure about the *, but wasn't my call. Had fun with the deck, thouth.

 

While I disagree with use of the asterisk, this is pretty good use of it. Since the pic is so small, they use the asterisk small, next to the word KING, and then put an asterisk over to the right and refer to a sidebar about how some question the record. The main story describes the record and the accomplishment and they still nod to the controversy. Very well done.

 

And here's an understated one ...

 

Meter is still at 0.

 

Threadjack: I fucking HATE Bakersfield fronts. Too damn much going on. It gives me cancer.

 

The fronts were my favorite part of working there. Actually brought some fun to the job again for me. We had talked about the asterisk thing there for years and I figured they would go with the approach of using it as a "refer" to another story.

 

We went with "BONDS DROPS THE HAMMER"

dw

 

I know there are some who disagree with it, but here's our headline and subhead, which we've had in the can for about a week.

GIANT ASTERISK
Controversial Bonds surpasses Aaron as all-time home run leader

1A went with 756! as a huge teaser across the top.

Rip away. Steroids is part of the story, but I can also see the points others have made.

 

Part of me really wants to get in on putting that as a headline. But it instanly has put your newsroom and sports staff on the side of passing judgment based on speculation. Sure, the headline is good and catchy and will make some stop and read it, but nearly everyone will also now know where your paper stands on the issue. And unless you have a columnist or editorial writer writing the main story and placing the newspaper's stance in it, you should never be using headlines to do that for you. I'm all for your choice of headline if you have a columnist writing the main story that goes with that headline.

It'd be like A1 putting "Retarded moron re-elected president" with the main story after the last election. Sure, we all think it, and Bush being a bit out there is a major part of the story of his re-election, but your newsroom would have no place passing that judgment, that's up to the reader.