11.07.2007

Good Headline/Bad Headline

I managed to find a headline that is good and bad all at once:

Police: Man tortured with freshly baked cookies



The good is pretty obvious here: How could you not want to find out more about a man being tortured with freshly baked cookies? I'm not endorsing torture (not even torture with freshly baked cookies), but you have to admit, when you see that headline, you're clicking on it to find out how, exactly, one tortures someone with freshly baked cookies and the circumstances behind the story.

This is where we get into the bad: the story isn't quite as fun as the involvement of freshly baked cookies would lead you to believe. It turns out the cookie torture was the result of a drug deal gone bad, and wasn't the only torture inflicted, although the victim's injuries weren't bad enough to require hospital visit. I guess my issue here is really more with the story failing to live up to the headline than with the headline itself. Now that I think about it, this is actually an example of how a great headline can take one aspect of an otherwise mundane story and make it attractive to readers.

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