Personally, I don't think question marks should ever be used in heds. The Trib does it all the time, and, quite honestly, it just strikes me as lazy; you can always find a better hed. To me, the newspaper's job, above all else, is to be informative. It's harder to do that when you are always asking moronic, rhetorical questions in your news space.
4 comments:
(That's "hed." Easy to hit that extra "e," though.)
I disagree. I think that question heds can sometimes be very effective. And while hedlines are typically meant to inform, I think they also serve the purpose of catching a reader's attention. Maybe a question hed does that well. Take for example that brilliant "Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Repeat." hed from the Virginian-Pilot. It didn't really tell us anything, at least not without the picture and story, but it definitely made me want to read on.
I think it would be safe to say that the question mark should be saved for interesting CP stories or other pieces. In this particular one, I'm not a fan, either. I think the subhed right above the text speaks more to me. But I can also appreciate how they're trying to draw in the reader by involving them with the question.
Ryan,
I guess I could be convinced that they do indeed have some value. But it just seems like the Trib uses them as an "out," like when they can't think of anything better.
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