In today's online news media, particularly to stand out on the social media feeds and news aggregators that dictate the flow of information on the internet, web traffic-conscious editors toil away at crafting headlines most conducive to capturing the passing interest of a potential reader -- a reader already awash in a seemingly endless array of content. Sensationalized headlines are, of course, nothing new; they have been a mainstay of modern journalism since its inception. They are also hardly unique to the internet era; in a previous "News-on-the-Record" column, for instance, I quoted biographer William Shawcross' description of Rupert Murdoch's approach to engaging readers and, thus, selling newspapers as he implored editors at the Adelaide Newsin 1958 to commission more stories about "cats up in trees in Adelaide and fewer uprisings in Ankara." Tailored headlines were, of course, a primary feature of this effort.
The First Person in Journalism
