Reply #13: From a production standpoint...headline writing is all about letter-count. [View All]

[Atman]

The layout editor gives the headline writer a vertical and horizontal dimension, and the headline writer must use the paper's standard fonts to fit a headline into that space. Unlike your home "desktop publishing," they wont squash and stretch to make it fit...the add and subtract words/letters.

Do a letter count for yourself...

Lamont.

candidate who defeated Lieberman.

Obviously, Lamont was too short to fill the alloted space. So the headline writer writes and re-writes the text until he come up with a balance of clarity, accuracy and most importantly -- real estate. Look at your daily paper tomorrow. It isn't a happy accident that all the headlines fit almost exactly into the space their alloted (unlike in movies, where newspaper headlines never seem to fit the paper).