The New York Post
You don’t buy the New York Post expecting the New York Times. Obviously. You slap down a few quarters, get on the subway, and breeze through the paper within about fifteen minutes. On a good day, you’ll come away feeling entertained and (somewhat) informed.
The people at the Post aren’t about hoity-toity language and opinions — they’re about jamming as much breaking news and gossip down your throat as you can handle. And they’re good at it. So good, in fact, that you’re willing to overlook their blatantly right-wing op-eds in exchange for a juicy Page Six.
And then there are the headlines.
After a close reading, you’ll notice that the Post seems to apply three unspoken rules to the art of headline writing:
1. Use incorrect spelling wherever possible
Through is thru, Brooklyn is B’klyn, says is sez, etc. Okay, so they’ve got their reasons — their headlines are invariably enormous, and there just isn’t enough space to spell out every word in 64 point font. But this habit of shortening words can make the entire paper feel like an AIM chat, to the point where you start asking yourself, “omg! r u 4 real?”
2. Awful Alliteration Always Appeals
It’s almost as if they think their average reader is still hooked on nursery rhymes. Or maybe there’s a daily contest for the writers, with a point system for each word in a headline that begins with the same letter. More than three Ps per headline, you get a raise? Today’s paper included five stories with Mother Goose-style repetition: “Spitzer Story Slammed”, “Post Panelists Pick Hillary”, “Tornado Twisted for 9 Miles”, “Mafia’s Mister Clean”, and “Asian Bigot Busted!” Say that three times fast.
3. Shameless Word Play is Fun!
The last headline rule of Post headline writing is that all puns are created equal; use them whenever possible. From today’s paper: “What a Welcome Matt!”, “TV Chef Out of Frying Pan”, “Moore ‘Bad News’”, “Kitty Litter: 63 Cats Left at Shelter”, “Vroom for Two at Top”, “Jetsue: Arab’s T-Shirt ‘Bias’ Rap”, and, finally, “Chime-Out for Big Ben — Big Ben is losing its bongs — temporarily”.
After pinpointing these trends, it makes a little more sense why sometimes after finishing the Post, you just feel a little…. cheesy. In a good way.
