Headlines that never should have been written

http://pulptastic.com/24-headlines-never-written/

 

These headlines are good for a laugh -- but I try not to laugh too hard because of the "those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" concept. Every veteran copy editor who handles a big workload has busted a few headlines and written a few stinkers over the years.

I've got a few favorites from one of my former shops, neither of which was in sports:

"Lewinsky granted broad immunity," banner headline on 1A written by the night news editor; for her effort, she received a 6:30 a.m. phone call at home from the ME.

"Big jugs, inexpensive wine mean great party," in the lifestyle section.

 

There was a great one from the 1930s in our paper on a high school football game, when one of the locals lost to the state school for the deaf:

Podunk High beaten
by Deaf & Dumb team

 

Roasted Nuts

 

One of my favorites was more about ignorance than lack of thinking it through:

Enola Homosexual Exhibit
To Visit Museum

 

Girl from the big high school here had a big night in basketball so I dropped this one:

Amber alert

Made sense to me at the time, but did not play well.

 

I former co-worker' headline on a team that won a softball title thanks to a pitcher's no-hitter: "No-no means yes!"
That did not go over well. He didn't understand why a woman's rights activist was furious.

 

Wow. I don't know how that one even could have been written. I mean, Enola Gay was an airplane name.

If you didn't know what Enola was, you needed to ask -- or read it in the story? -- or look it up or otherwise clarify it for yourself.

And I doubt that one would have gotten through at all these days. It's cute and perhaps accurate in that case, but too politically incorrect and insensitive.

 

Gee, ya think?
By "great" I meant great in its old-timey political incorrectness. Obviously, running that now would soon be followed by a visit to careerbuilder.com.

 

There was a computer program incorporated by some media that auto-corrected certain words, including changed "gay" to "homosexual" automatically, and things like this ended up happening. During the Olympics it changed sprinter Tyson Gay to Tyson Homosexual. Instead of Gay wins race, it said Homosexual wins race. I wonder if that's what happened in this instance.

 

Was probably an automated process that was set tp change "gay" to "homosexual."

A few years back, Tyson Gay qualified for the Olympics -- and a right-wing Christian site posted "Tyson Homosexual wins 100 meters."