Last Updated: May 26, 1999
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The write stuff: Winning heads and
leads
Crazy Eddie, beer and a long face top off these winning
leads, headlines
By Brian Cooper
Good leads and headlines are the quick summaries that get a reader to
pause and read the story. Are your newspaper’s as good as these? If so,
see below to send them in.
Seven years after it slammed shut, the Crazy Eddie Inc. refund window
is about to reopen...
(By John Ward, Asbury Park Press of Neptune, N.J., in an advance
on the sentencing of the "Crazy Eddie" founder and the likely payouts
to defrauded investors.)
***
Getting in touch with his inner tube
(Chuck Wright of The Ledger, Lakeland, Fla., on the catchline of
a photo showing a man teaching his son how to fix a flat bicycle tire.)
***
6-wheel buggy speeding toward Mars
(By Cindy Marshall of The Indianapolis Star, on a wire report on
the launch of the Mars Pathfinder. The payload is a buggy no bigger than
a child’s wagon.)
***
Also from Indianapolis:
This Bud is not for you if you’re an MTV viewer
(By Dennis Hoffman, over a wire story saying the brewer, to show
it is serious about helping cut underage drinking, has pulled its ads from
the teen-oriented cable channel.)
***
Speaking of beer, this intoxicating — well, enticing — headline
and lead combination wins this issue’s Double Play award:
Mad about brew
Success and love of beer keep meister Brock Wagner hopping
It’s a burnt-caramel odor, a cloying, woody smell that gets in your
nostrils and stays there. Sweet, in a charred, pungent way. Not very pleasant,
to tell the truth.
A smell only a genuine brewmeister could love.
(Headline by Renee Kientz, lead by Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje of the
Houston Chronicle, on a lifestyle cover story from a microbrewery.)
***
Guns gotta shoot, planes gotta fly.
But neither one’s gotta happen on property in northwest Pasco, county
planners said Wednesday.
(By Janet Forgrieve, of The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune, on a recommendation
forwarded to county supervisors.)
***
The Wall Street Journal produces many outstanding headlines. Here are
a couple cited in recent internal bulletins:
A Call to Alms
Powell Musters Business World
(By Jerry Seib, on his own column about retired Gen. Colin Powell’s
plea for businesspeople to get involved in their communities.)
***
Funny Business:
Horse Goes Into a Bar; Bartender Says, ‘Hey Why the Long Face?’
(The conversation deck reads: If You Got That Punch Line,
It May Say Something About Humor in America)
(By Jay Ducassi)
***
Here are two headlines by Mary Ann Whitley of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland:
The fiber of their being
(Over a story on a mother’s labor of love: Creating a square for
the AIDS Memorial Quilt in memory of her son.)
***
Road warriors to fight more traffic at Ohio 58 intersection
(This was a contender for the Double Play Award. The lead, by Molly
Kavanaugh, was: "Nothing is going right at the intersection where motorists
can’t go left.")
***
Help make things go right for your staff. Submit their outstanding headlines
and leads to The Write Stuff.
Cooper is executive editor of the Telegraph Herald, Dubuque, Iowa.
Contact him at P.O. Box 688, Dubuque, IA 52004-0688 or bcooper@wcinet.com
