I heard the news today oh boy …
An on-the-fly comparison: These are the headlines I can see in the feeds on my custom Google home page, which I always have open.
Russian ex-president Yeltsin dies
BBC News (a perfect headline, as usual!)
Former Russian Leader Boris Yeltsin, 76, Dies
The Washington Post (more words than we need)
Russia’s Maverick
Google News: TIME magazine (awful headline!!! Well, considering it’s not even about Yeltsin’s death … So much for automated news, eh?)
But I actually got the word FIRST from The New York Times on Twitter.
The Times had its own story online at 11:09 a.m. (-04:00 GMT). The Post had the AP wire story at 11:14 a.m. The BBC had its own story updated at 15:24 GMT (11:24 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time) — it was up there earlier, but I didn’t capture the time of first posting.
Educators: If you want to do a Web headline-writing exercise today, look here.
Technorati tags: news | online journalism | headlines
Categories: teaching
Actually, I’d say BBC’s headline could use a “Boris” in front of the “Yeltsin.” Gotta rock the SEO…
You don’t think Yeltsin alone will hook the SEO?
The BBC headline has to be between 31 and 33 characters, including spaces, as it is pushed out to multiple platforms such as TV text and mobile phones. Hence the lack of a “Boris”.
Thanks, Alf!