As a former copy editor who used to enjoy writing headliness (crass joke deleted- ed) I appreciate the importance of good heds in the Spec.
What I don't enjoy is having those heds
lifted off the ledes of my copy as happened this week with the
controversial Mass-iah front page hed that appeared in the Wednesday
edition:
"Maas-iah: Can the new quarterback become the Ticats new saviour"
My lede on my page 3 sports edition story read 'The Maas-iah is here.'
To give credit where credit is due, it was art director Bob Hutton - another great hed guy - who originally proposed the Maas-iah lede for my piece so all the frustrated Catholic letter writers tired of complaining about the Gore Park deer, can direct their venom at affable Bob.
The point is, we should not be ripping off ledes to use as heds, it's lazy journalism and makes us look unnecessarily repetitive. We have talented hed writers, let them do their work without stealing ledes from the writers.
And for the record, I think some ledes can work on sports copy but could be found to be offensive as the main heds on A1. This could be the case for Maas-iah.
I could be wrong on this but I throw it out there for debate.
All of which is respectfully submitted
Ken (Red Cap) Peters
It is generous of Ken to leap to the defence of Bob Hutton's clever little bit of wordplay, but I wonder if he's missed the uprights on this one.
We'll ask Bob, of course, but it just might be that BOB suggested the front page head and deck, it being A1 and him being the Art director and all.
As for "lazy" journalism - well. Given the page flow most nights, "lazy" just seems like the wildly wrong kind of word to use in these circumstances - even coming from a guy who filed four stories from a single football game.
Truth is, in the eight years I've been here I'd have to say that the incidence of "lede theft" by headline writers has diminished to the point of invisibility.
Five metres for illegal motion, Ken.
Bill D.
Posted by: Bill Dunphy | December 08, 2005 at 04:37 PM