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“Where blubber hits the road”

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That was the headline on a Feb. 4 article about how elephant seals near San Simeon are getting past fences and flopping their way onto California 1. Reader John De Simio of Los Angeles ‘roared with laughter’ when he read it, he said, adding in his e-mail: ‘It’s a delight to commend the hard-working copy editors for a change. Please pass along a job well and hilariously done to the clever headline writer.’

Consider it done, Mr. De Simio: The note was sent to the California copy desk, which is where the clever copy editor who wrote the blubber headline, Dave Bowman, works.

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Unfortunately, most reader comments about headlines are criticisms. They come in two forms.

1. Readers send annoyed notes to reporters, assuming they wrote the words that top their stories. They don’t; copy editors do.

2. Readers raise concerns that that a headline didn’t accurately capture the meaning of the story, which is a problem, they say, because most people get the news by simply scanning headlines.

Point No. 2 touches on the essence of headlines: They are limited by the layout of a page, which often means they’re only a few words, and short ones at that. Among the hardest headlines to write are those confined to one column. (Headlines on Web pages -- including many of those in the links below -- are often different, with their own demands and limitations, but that’s a topic for another time.)

Copy editors, of course, do more than write headlines. They are the last editors to review stories before they’re published. Brad Hanson on the Business copy desk described his work, and that of fellow copy editors, this way: ‘If a copy editor has done a good job, the work is invisible. They correct errors, polish grammar and tighten copy. Their job is to make the writer look good and to defend the integrity of the publication.’

Hanson has it almost right -- but a copy editor’s work is quite visible when it comes to the headlines. There are sure to be more complaints featured in future postings; meanwhile, here’s a chance to look at some examples of the good.

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Here’s one by John Gallant, who works on the California desk, on a March 6 story.

S. Pasadena does so solemnly not swear
The city declares a week without cussing, an idea hatched in a local school.

Another Gallant headline, on the article on Feb. 24 about the semiannual state convention at which Republicans considered their political and financial problems:

State’s GOP
not in a
party mood

On Feb. 3, this one by Jim Walters topped the story out of Oceanside, Ore., about the newly expanded inn and restaurant whose owner was struggling to keep the place open.

At the inn that added on, they take it off
Strippers are brought
in as a last resort after
a town boycotts one
man’s business over a
third-floor expansion.

For a Feb. 12 story in Business, one from Ed Silver.

What to do at the tipping point
Gratuity jars beckon on every counter, but customers decide who deserves a little extra.

The headline by Wanda Lau on a Feb. 21 story in Business worked well with the accompanying photo of the proprietor wrapping himself in fabric and surrounded by rolls of cloth.

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Firm was ready to bolt
Drapes 4 Show was set to
move to Las Vegas when L.A.
offered an affordable plan.

Two winners from Sports: First, on a Feb. 10 Dodgertown story, this headline, from Mike Davis, was under a label that said ‘The last year at Vero Beach’:

Dodgers headed way off-base
Nostalgia is in air at spring facility leading up to probably their last gathering at the compound called Dodgertown.

Also clever were the words accompanying the photo that showed an intersection in Dodgertown, where the streets are named after legendary team members:

INTERSECTING HISTORY: Dodgertown is a place where the streets have known names.

This, too, from Davis, on a Feb. 19 story two weeks after Kobe Bryant injured his right pinkie:

DIGITAL WATCH
All eyes will be
on Bryant’s fickle
finger, which could
determine the Lakers’ fate in the West race.

Fernando Dominguez had a a good headline on a feature story about Erick Aybar of the Angels on Feb. 12:

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ANGELS RAISING AYBAR
Dominican might have the inside track to take over at shortstop, a position that was left vacant with the trade of Cabrera

That worked on two levels -- Aybar is a homegrown talent, and this is a year that the Angels have raised their expectations that he will blossom in the position.

This in Travel on March 2 was from Mark Geers:

Steeping in Seattle
A town on a java jag has room for the gracious ritual of tea drinking

The best headlines, it seems, are those that need no explanation; still, the following one by David Shear for The Guide on Feb. 21 takes minimal explanation for maximum enjoyment. On a column about a couple being married in a wrestling ring:

Call it
a triple-ring
ceremony

This headline was by Eldes Tran; you can guess what the story was about:

Are you done with that?
How about now? Now?

(Yes, the column, which appeared in The Guide on Feb. 21, was about restaurant servers taking plates too quickly.)

For a Feb. 14 review in Calendar of ‘The Spiderwick Chronicles,’ Linda Whitmore wrote this:

Déjà vu all ogre again
Mark Waters’ ‘Spiderwick’ goes easy on
the pixie dust and ratchets up the action
in an effort to keep the fantasy fresh.

Karin Esterhammer captured the story in this Feb. 6 Highway 1 headline about Volkswagen’s latest:

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Hopping off
the bunny trail
No cute Rabbit-type names for this VW. The R32 holds
that notorious gearbox. Still, it really should be more fun.

This one by Blake Hennon, for a Feb. 5 story in Calendar, referred to a familiar aspect of pledge drives:

No tote bag
for President Bush
His budget’s pledge
would more than halve
federal funds for public
broadcasting; station
leaders will fight cuts.

Travel also had a story on Feb. 3 about missing luggage. The headline is courtesy of Amy Hubbard.

Wish you were here, suitcase

Blackberry users probably appreciated this by Jim Powell in Business on the Feb. 12 story.

Wireless
devices draw
a blank
A BlackBerry outage
leaves North
a
ndCentral America
without e-mail service
for several hours.

Finally, Tim Lynch, who oversees the Foreign and National copy desks and often oversees the front-page headlines, threw in his on the Feb. 23 Column One about an activist who has taken the law into his own hands by posting photos online that he’s shot with a video camera:

Dear john,
It’s all
over
If you mess around
with a prostitute in
Oklahoma City, the
Video Vigilante may
catch you in the act.
Then the world will.

Photos from top by Stephen Osman, L.A. Times; Mel Melcon, L.A. Times; Stephen Dunn, Allsport

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