How is the Internet affecting the fine art of headline-writing? David Carr considers this question in "Taylor Momsen Did Not Write This Headline" in the New York Times (read it here). "Headlines in newspapers and magazines were once written with readers in mind, to be clever or catchy or evocative," he claims, but "Now headlines are just there to get the search engines to notice."
He gives some interesting examples of how using hot terms can bring a headline to the top of the heap in online searches, but hot terms and catchy phrases have always had the ability to capture eyeballs, whether in print or online. But the Taylor Momsen fan looking for more juicy celebrity gossip will be disappointed by Carr's article, just as Googlers looking for "Exhibitionists--totally nude!" will be disappointed by this blog post from 2006.
I always try to convince my students that a catchy title might attract reluctant readers but an inaccurate title will make readers feel cheated, which is why they can't call every essay "Sex, Drugs, and Rock-and-Roll." If Carr is right, expect more and more readers to feel cheated by headlines that lure them in with juicy search terms but then fail to deliver anything juicy.
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