The perils of the short headline count

I suspect that if you take a look at our Page One editor’s desk, you’ll find some small stress cracks in his computer monitor from bashing his head against it trying to come up with a headline for today’s Duncan story that fits the specs he’d been given. “Shasta may testify at trial,” while technically true, doesn’t really capture the issue on its own. There isn’t much of a question as to whether she’ll be called to testify in the case - the prosecutor just wants to make sure that Duncan is out of the room when she does. This is abundantly clear after reading the subhead and the first sentence of the story, but not all readers are as cautious as we’d like them to be.

The fallout has been interesting, with at least one television station currently reporting “breaking news” on its Web site that the judge is being asked to “let 9-year old Shasta Groene testify.” This is misleading, because the judge (in general) doesn’t make a decision whether or not the alleged victim in a criminal case testifies, but it’s easy to see how someone making a quick scan of the page might come away with that impression.

This gets us back to the headline, and as someone who’s spent time in the aforementioned Page One chair, I confess that I can’t think of anything better that would fit the specs. The version I’m using online - “Prosecutor says Shasta shouldn’t face Duncan” - is an improvement, but wouldn’t fit on the printed page. Fortunately, space is not an issue on the Web.

Perhaps a bigger issue is the way in which these motions were filed - directly through the judge, rather than through the court’s records department, in an effort to “keep things low key.” One of the newspaper’s value statements (and, I would argue, a fundamental pillar of democracy) is that the public’s business should be conducted in public. As Steve Smith put it, if we don’t keep an eye on the courts, who will? Editors commended reporter Taryn Brodwater’s aggressiveness in bringing these motions to light.

In other news

Gary Graham’s morning scan of the Newseum revealed that at least two newspapers - the San Jose Mercury News and the Oregonian - ran the story on changing attitudes toward obesity on their front pages. Gary also observed that the New York Times may have been the only paper in the country to run a two-column obituary for the passing of opera star Birgit Nilsson on the front page. The obit didn’t make our paper, it’s likely being saved for our weekly “In Passing” feature that runs on Sunday. Roughly half of the people at the table claimed to know who Nillson was, not counting reporter Tom Clouse, who said he thought it might have been “that woman who married Sylvester Stallone.” (Note to irony-impaired - he was joking)