Last Saturday’s front-page headline “Down’s syndrome bombers kill 91” brought complaints from readers with a personal involvement with Down’s.
This was typical: “As the grandfather of a delightful boy who has Down’s syndrome, I find your splash headline offensive. By calling them ‘Down’s syndrome bombers’ it quite absurdly, if unintentionally, equates the condition with the action. They were of course innocent victims used by unscrupulous terrorists, and Down’s syndrome is not the reason for their suicidal attack.
“Headline writers should attempt to understand the meaning of the words they use, not just their impact and whether they fit the space.”
As I have mentioned before in this column, headlines pose particular difficulties for newspapers. The main challenge, especially on the front page, is inescapably to find something that has maximum impact in a minimum of space. The Press Complaints Commission acknowledges these special challenges when it says that it expects people to read the text of the story, not just the headline and standfirst.
Our standfirst immediately below the headline in large bold type read: “Al-Qaeda detonates handicapped women by remote control.” We felt that, taken together, the headline, standfirst and text made clear that the women were cruelly used and as much victims as the rest of those who died, a point reiterated throughout the story.
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It is, of course, never our intention to offend, and we apologise to those who felt that our headline was insensitive.
John Stanning e-mails: “Where did the cover of times2 last Friday (February 1) come from — the photo of a man running away from a crowd of women dressed as brides? I imagine it’s from a film. Could photos like that be acknowledged? By the way, how do you find these photos? Given a story about a shortage of eligible men, who came up with that image, and how?”
Over to Ian Whitbread, the picture editor of times2: “That cover was from the film The Bachelor. It came from a Spanish image library called albumonline that has a large selection of film stills. We always credit the source of the cover image on page 2 (at the very top right-hand side), and we try to keep this credit as simple as possible, but I think you are right about acknowledging the film title with the cover credit, so in future I will do my best to include it.
“As for the ideas, they come from a brainstorming session between the editors, art directors and picture desk.”
D. M. Fleetwood writes from Hertfordshire: “I have always used the Hours of Darkness table published on the weather page to give me the lighting-up time. This shows lighting-up time as 30 minutes after sunset. It has recently been pointed out to me that, since 1989, lighting-up time has been at sunset. Please check.”
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The Royal Observatory in Edinburgh says: “Lighting-up time: Sunrise and sunset times are NOT the same as lighting-up times. Street lamps in the UK generally come on about half an hour after sunset and turn off about half an hour prior to sunrise.” And the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich says: “The Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations, 1989, make the use of front and rear position lamps compulsory on vehicles during the period between sunset and sunrise. Headlamps are required on vehicles during the hours of darkness, which are defined by these regulations as being the interval between one half-hour after sunset to one half-hour before sunrise. Lights are also required at other times when visibility is restricted.”
The latter seems slightly confusing, but I think we have it right.
A bouquet of bloomers. Richard Channon: “Is there any hope of persuading journalists and sub-editors that ‘careening’ does not mean ‘careering’ (Travel, January 26)? The latter means rushing down a slope Gadarene swine-wise, the former meaning scraping a ship’s bottom.” Michael Galgut: “To read the word ‘prevarication’ twice in one article recently when ‘procrastination’ was meant was bad enough, but to read the same mistake in your first leader was too much. Please tell your people to stop annoying me.” Terence Casey: “ ‘Defenders of the faith have also accused the atheists of the same fundamentalism that they impugn to their enemies.’ Should it not read ‘impute’?” And a graphic showing property prices (February 2) managed to refer to the Isle of White.
Apologies to all, for all.