"-ing" in a headline

The other night, I (new at pagination) put a headline on top of some AP story with a word that ended in -ing (not "fucking", thought I thought about it).

Anyway, when I had the page proofed, one of the other copy editors said "everything's good, but you gotta change that headline ... don't use -ing in a headline."

Is this a real rule? Like I said, I'm new to this, so while I think that I've seen plenty of headlines like that in other papers, maybe (probably) I'm just an idiot.

 

I've never encountered that rule, so it's either one that doesn't paid attention to, or it's one specific to your paper (or even more specifically, whoever's proofing that page)

 

Not knowing what your headline was, I'm guessing the copy editor was telling you to put a verb in the headline instead of a gerund.

 

Put fucking in a few headlines and watch the readership go up.... ;D

 

Didn't you watch the VP debate? We don't use the "G" anymore.

 

Pictures work better than headlines

 

Avoiding -ing was a general rule that news vets always followed. Then "designers" got into the act and started introducing hammerheads and label heads like ... every day. They were used on features then gravitated into news and centerpieces.
Now, they are almost the rule, at least at my place. I hate them, but as a slot, I'm not going to rewrite every headline every night.

 

I came up at the very end of hot type and met all sorts of veterans and heard all sorts of rules over the years, but I missed this one. Actually, I agree with somebody else who said it would help to know what the headline was.

 

I was thinking it was probably something like ''Tards looking for first victory"

 

Done well, I like them. They can offer a quality that a verb might make too time specific.

 

the tards suck, won't win a game all season. and they don't even try hard.

 

"Cleaves, Richardson flying separately to St. Louis for Final Four"