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I'm sure fur was flying over this one

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The call boxing the sweet science, but among journalists, it's headline writing.

I remember working on the copy desk at several big-city newspapers like The Waterbury (Conn.) Republican-American, the Lowell Sun, and the Portland Press Herald.

It's not an easy job. You get some 500-word story sent to you, and you're supposed to find all the typos, question the logic and style and then come up with cutlines that compel and a headline that sings in about 20 minutes.

After 25 minutes the copy desk chief is screaming for it.

But sometimes - on some stories - I don't care how talented you are, or think you are. There's just no winning.

Take today's Union Leader, for instance.

There's a story about a domestic assault in Laconia. But the "grabber" is that the guy arrested is said to have thrown a kitten up against the wall during the argument with his partner, killing it instantly.

This, of course, is abject animal cruelty and violence at its worst.

But editors, in their quest to get the kitten-killing angle in the headline, had a tough time with this one.

One headline that appeared around 8:30 p.m. on Friday night read, "Laconia man killed kitten during assault, police say."

Now the first thing wrong with it is that you always strive to put headlines in the present tense, as in "Laconia man kills ...," but what probably prodded editors to change the hed (newspaper parlance) was that, standing alone, it makes it sound like the man was assaulting the kitten and ultimately killed it, ignoring the mention of his domestic partner.

I can hear the copy desk chief chiding the copy editor: "So what happened, did they (the man and the kitten) get into a fight outside a bar?"

So after much consternation, they chiseled out another hed, around 1:30 a.m. early this morning: "Kitten slain during domestic assault in Laconia."

Now there's a mugshot of the guy in the UL, but if there wasn't and I was the copy desk chief - which I was for years while in the business - I would've asked the copy editor, "So did they arrest the kitten's partner?"

But since there is a picture of the guy, I'd ask, "So how long had the suspect and the kitten been living together?"

I also question the use of the word "slain." To slay is to kill, especially in battle or great numbers, according to one dictionary I checked out. In fact, I think this is the first time I've ever seen the word "slain" used in reference to an animal. I have to admit it sounds a little weird.

Needless to say you get the drift that copy desk chiefs can be pretty nasty when critiquing staff on the headlines sent to camera.

So try this, if you want. What if you got this story, were told to edit and put a head on it in 20 minutes?

You instructions would just say 3-36-1. That means three columns wide, 36 point and one deck, or line of type. That's not many words, about six or seven. You can judge by the number of words in the headlines that were published.

Here's the links to the two stories, still both on their website home page today.

http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150626/NEWS03/150629249

http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150627/NEWS03/150629173

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