How to Measure Newspaper Headlines

Headline writers are a very talented bunch in that they are able to find the right words to fit in the "hole" they've been given. Advertising typically gets first choice of the space in a newspaper. The news and feature stories have their own sections that fill the front pages of each section. The inside of the newspaper is up for grabs. Headlines get the space left over.

Instructions

1. Wait until all the copy is sent over to your desk before trying to come up with a headline. The hole that you will have to fill can change as ads come in late and stories get edited.

2. Use as much of the proposed headline sent to you as possible. Creativity is often stifled when you see how much space you have to run the headline.

3. Scan the story. The first three paragraphs will hold the main ideas of the story and give you the gist for your headline.

4. Look at the entire page before deciding if you can span two columns or need to keep the headline to one column. If you have the whole top of the page, you then have to decide how big of font you will use. Most newspapers have policies about how big or small a headline has to be. Your hole will determine how many lines you can use within those guidelines.

5. Try various words to see if they will fit. Until you send the final version, you can change the font size and the wording very easily.