Headlines and Subheads

The headline is the only part of the article most people will ever read. It shows up in search results, on social cards, in a friend's share with no context. So it has to be complete on its own and honest on its own.

Write it after the story. You will know what the story says by then, and the headline must match.

The basic news headline

A news headline is a short sentence: a subject, an active verb, and the change. Headline voice uses present tense for things that already happened ("Board Raises Rates," not "Board Raised Rates"), drops "a" and "the," and uses future with "to" ("Bills to Rise").

Put the most important words first. On a phone, in a search result, in a social card, the end of a long headline often gets cut off. "Marlow water bills" up front tells the right readers this is about them before the screen trims anything.

Use the words readers use. People search for "water bill," not "residential rate adjustment." They search for "school start time," not "bell schedule modification." A headline in the agency's language is invisible to the people it affects.

Honest headlines

The headline must not claim more than the story proves. Readers who feel tricked by a headline stop trusting the outlet, and they are right to.

• Match the strength of the verb. If the story says the commissioner "did not rule out" a tax increase, the headline cannot say "plans." If a study "found a link," the headline cannot say "causes."
• Attribute claims. If the claim belongs to one side, the headline says so: "Opponents Say Bond Would Double Road Taxes." Without attribution, the headline adopts the claim as fact.
• No question headlines on news. Is the Library Board Hiding Something? If you could prove it, you would say it. If you cannot, you are insinuating.
• No curiosity gaps. The Water Board Just Did Something You Need to Know About withholds the news to force a click. It works once per reader.
• Check the number. The headline number must be the same as the story number, rounded the same way. Readers catch "22%" up top and "21.8 percent" in paragraph two and wonder which is true. Use the same figure in both.

The dek

The dek sits under the headline and carries what the headline could not: the second fact, the context, the stakes. It should not repeat the headline in different words.

Headlines for features and opinion

Features and columns get more room to play. A feature about the old snowplows could run "Fenwick's Newest Plow Is Old Enough to Vote." That is a delayed-lede headline: it creates interest with a true, specific detail, and the dek delivers the news ("A $2.3 million road bond on the November ballot would replace two of the county's three trucks.").

Wordplay is fine when it is clear and does not mock the people in the story. A pun on a funeral home story is never fine. And a clever headline that a reader has to think about for five seconds has lost to the plain one that took one.

Opinion headlines can take a side, because the piece takes a side. Label opinion clearly anyway. A headline arguing a position on a news page, without an opinion label, reads as the outlet stating facts.

Subheads inside the story

Long articles need subheads. Readers skim them to decide whether to keep going and to jump to the part they care about. A good set of subheads works as a table of contents.

Make subheads specific. "Background" and "Other Issues" tell a skimmer nothing. "Second increase in two years" or "What opponents want instead" tell them exactly what is underneath. In explainers, phrase subheads as the reader's question: "What would it cost me?" "When do I vote?"

Space them by sense, not by count. A subhead belongs where the topic changes. In most news articles over about 800 words, that ends up every four to eight paragraphs. Do not add a subhead for every two paragraphs to look organized, and do not let 1,500 words run without one.

Keep subheads short, under about eight words, and parallel in form when they sit in a series. If one is a question, make them all questions, or none.

Style details

Pick one capitalization style and use it everywhere: headline case (Most Words Capitalized) or sentence case (only the first word and proper nouns). Sentence case is easier to read and harder to get wrong. Since 2019, AP style allows the % sign after a numeral, which saves space in headlines. Spell out numbers under 10 in body text if your style calls for it, but headlines usually use figures for everything.

Avoid abbreviations readers will not know. "CIP," "TIF" and "LID" mean nothing to most people. Spell out or rephrase.