First, credit where it is due: Channel 4 News had a terrific story last night about the scandal of hospital building funded by the so-called private finance initiative (PFI) programme, with the focus of this exclusive tale on the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.
PFI seems to resemble a bit of a wheeze in which public hospitals got built very quickly, making politicians such as Gordon "Referendum Resurrection" Brown look incredibly brilliant, clever and caring; and their private financiers continue to get rewarded handsomely over decades from taxpayers' money, making them look incredibly brilliant, clever, rich, grasping and greedy.
The "furniture" on a story has a job to do, whether on the interweb or newsprint. A headline should draw the reader in, being eye-catching and full of SEO (search engine optimisation/sexy exceptional oohs) goodies.
A good standfirst will give a bit more context, and the byline and any accompanying mugshot will reassure that here is someone I like reading and trust - a no-brainer in the case of the excellent Cathy Newman.
So then we come to the crossheads (type centred) or sideheads (type set left): the mini-headlines or, if you prefer, large bits of text that break up chunks of copy, tell you what's coming in the next few paragraphs and should encourage you to read on. Should.
I think this story is so good that little coaxing is needed to read on. But whoever wrote the unbelievably dull and jargon-rich "Ongoing investigation" in this sidehead needs to go on a refresher course.
We old-school subs are programmed to replace "ongoing" with "continuing" in all circumstances. "Ongoing investigation" is pure essence of plodspeak. Just because most of the Old Bill, as my detective father used to tell me about his colleagues, can't speak or write proper English in public does not mean that journalists have to regurgitate their mangled notions, especially in sideheads.
Maybe something like "Fire safety fears" would have been a little more to the point.
PFI seems to resemble a bit of a wheeze in which public hospitals got built very quickly, making politicians such as Gordon "Referendum Resurrection" Brown look incredibly brilliant, clever and caring; and their private financiers continue to get rewarded handsomely over decades from taxpayers' money, making them look incredibly brilliant, clever, rich, grasping and greedy.
The "furniture" on a story has a job to do, whether on the interweb or newsprint. A headline should draw the reader in, being eye-catching and full of SEO (search engine optimisation/sexy exceptional oohs) goodies.
A good standfirst will give a bit more context, and the byline and any accompanying mugshot will reassure that here is someone I like reading and trust - a no-brainer in the case of the excellent Cathy Newman.
So then we come to the crossheads (type centred) or sideheads (type set left): the mini-headlines or, if you prefer, large bits of text that break up chunks of copy, tell you what's coming in the next few paragraphs and should encourage you to read on. Should.
I think this story is so good that little coaxing is needed to read on. But whoever wrote the unbelievably dull and jargon-rich "Ongoing investigation" in this sidehead needs to go on a refresher course.
We old-school subs are programmed to replace "ongoing" with "continuing" in all circumstances. "Ongoing investigation" is pure essence of plodspeak. Just because most of the Old Bill, as my detective father used to tell me about his colleagues, can't speak or write proper English in public does not mean that journalists have to regurgitate their mangled notions, especially in sideheads.
Maybe something like "Fire safety fears" would have been a little more to the point.
RSS Feed
