1,000 Headlines in 460 Days

As I’ve mentioned a few times before on Poynter Online, I’m an unapologetic news junkie. In the course of a single day, or a night, I’ll skim several hundred or sometimes several thousand headlines and articles. More often than not, I end up with a handful of headlines that I can’t resist sending to friends. Out of that came Headline of the Day, a Poynter Online feature that allows registered users to add the headlines they like (good, bad, or ugly) and everyone else to vote on them daily.

At times, it seems like a one-man party, with the winning headline securing a single vote most days: mine. That’s just fine by me, I enjoy picking the winner. But our stats paint a different picture: lots of lurkers, just no voters. 

Last night, I added my 1,000th headline: Man Wearing Chicken Suit Robs Kroger. I only hope it doesn’t draw attention to our recently retired president, Jim Naughton. So much for spending his idle time in a kayak.

To commemorate the headline millennium, I’ve picked some of my favorites. All of these are actual news stories, not one-liners from a witty blog.  Many of these links are now dead, or in an archive behind a dollar sign. All I can say is, you should have been at the party when it was hopping.

After you browse the headlines below, tell us which one you like best.

My personal favorites
This is the type of headline I like; creative with a nice gait, maybe even a laugh.   

• Kite takes flight with Norwegian in tow
• Woman found dead with arrow in head
• Gannon’s cannon plugged by Bucs
• Roosters on Boosters
• Three cheers for Spears rear
• Are You Gaga for Google?
• Hurley snubs Bing’s boon
• Baghdad boy band bid for big break
• Pudgy porkers pare pounds with new wanker’s diet
• Flying moose lands on car’s roof
• Police chief fries thief
• Chong gonged for selling bongs
• ROOSTER DIES AT PAWS OF PATRON
• Snack whacker fails to nip Nipchee in bud
• A pro’s pro pulling a con’s con
• Proprietor loses to city’s propriety
• Birdie barrage on creampuff courses
• IT’S STRAIT-LACED LADY VS. TIED-UP TEMPTRESS
• It’s Bowie Like Doughy, Not Bowie Like Howie
• First-ever pooper scooper powwow
• Crabbers crabby over ruined traps
• Pancake physics to cut batter splatter
• Fake Food Soaps Bought By Wicked Folks
• Flying waitresses ready to clip pesky perverts’ wings
• Quarter pounded at McDonald’s
• Kraft: Who Cut the Cheese? 

Obvious
With headlines like these, who needs the story? 

• Snow Storms May Be Precursor of Winter
• Bombs are frightening, SA human shield says
• Police find body in cemetery
• Investigators: Flaming Car With Body Inside ‘Suspicious’
• First-Time Exotic Dancers Should Avoid The Pole
• Local people want local news
• Meaningless headlines provide an illusion of substance
• Minnesota’s population aging faster than predicted
• Man Invents Glow-In-The-Dark Lightbulb
• Hemp Beer Creates a Buzz
• Speeding motorist blamed Coke
• There’s a gut feeling about this whole intuition thing
• Lesbian Japanese monkeys challenge Darwin’s assumptions
• Survey Says: People Do Stupid Things While Driving
• Girl gives frozen metal pole a lickin’, her tongue keeps on stickin’
• Raiders lively as King Tut (he’s dead)
• Sept. 11 Suspect Moussaoui Wants to Torture Ashcroft
• Authorities Seek Flasher – Police: Man Typically Wears No Pants
• `Spooning’ Comes Second To `Forking’ And `Knifing’
• ‘Fear Factor’ to feature bobbing in blood
• Indian testicle attack ‘is murder’
• Cremated Clowns And Dogs Get Equal Treatment
• STUDENT LOANS ARE FOR SUCKERS
• 29 hours is a year on OGLE-TR-56b
• Iraqi War Is Really A Bid To Steal E.T. Technology
• Short on style: Mullets set to make comeback

Not so obvious
Don’t assume everyone knows what you’re talking about.

• Grandmother Gives Sex Advice on Oxygen
• Forest Service employees donate to Glory Hole
• Bong, Ramirez linked at the arm
• Pope Likes The Passion
• Wind ban in effect for Ohio Turnpike
• Michael Jackson is arrested in handcuffs

Oops
This will be a blurb about the ‘oops’ category.  Replace this with real text. 

• big headline goes rightyy here
• Placeholder story for testing purposes
• Dummy stories provide excellent content for prototypes
• Test story for section 1637
• awhfonhoflsstfdlmlsar
• gsdgsd gsdgsdgsdggsi
• CORRECTED – CORRECTED-UPDATE 1-Japan call interest rate under zero for first
• Poll: Alabamians believe not enogh spent on education
 
Animal headlines
You can’t go wrong with a good animal headline … can you?

• ‘You Can’t Beat a Drinking Pig’
• Swede jailed in Australia over trouser snake smuggle attempt
• Fire-starting cat saves family
• Man whips fiancee with cat
• Rescued Sea Lions Released to Waiting Sharks
• Fla. Black Bears Look Like ‘Bald Rats’
• Dog lovers supporting man in poop flap 
 
Cliché animal headlines
Anyone can do a man bites dog headline. 

• Pigs eat farmer
• A dog-shoots-man story
• Man bites dog
• Man bites croc
• Syracuse Police Say Man Bites Dog
• Man ‘killed by own dog’  
• Pet Cat Shoots Boy
• Man’s Face Infested With Ants
• TV Personality Sues After Alleged Dolphin Injury
• Badger rampage injures five
• Squirrel terrorises town
• Bear Attacks Sub
• Girl really got run over by a ‘reindeer’
• Seal bites rail commuter
• Man falls to his death: dog arrested
• Bull terrier arrested 
 
Show me the monkeys … indeed.
After 1,000 headlines, one thing I’ve learned is that everyone secretly wants to write monkey headlines. 

• Show me the monkeys
• Monkey offers lice-removal service
• Morocco offers US monkeys to detonate mine
• H’ANGUS THE MONKEY HUMILIATED POLITICIAN
• Invisible condom protects monkeys from AIDS
• Rodeo Monkey Shows Spurs At Stock Show
• Man pleads guilty to primates in pants
• Man smuggled monkeys in pants
• Man hid monkeys in pants, pays price
• Monkey goes ape and bites man’s ears
• MONKEY KICKS WIFE OUT OF BED
• Monkey Visits German Pizzeria, Vandalizes Toilet
• Green Bay City Council will consider monkey’s owner’s appeal
• When Monkeys Are Not Men
• Woman dies in crash caused by monkey
• Toledo Zoo displays new swamp monkey
• Typing monkeys, but no Shakespeare
• Police On The Lookout For Unarmed But Potentially Dangerous Monkey
• Police on the lookout for runaway monkey
• Monkey terror on Marve Road
• Five endangered monkeys stolen from Hillsborough County sanctuary
• HOT MONKEY LOVE
• Monkey of a mayor falls into sex trap
• Killing of ‘Monkey Man’ sparks protest

…and beaver headlines.

• Man finds beaver on porch
• Beavers no match for Trojans
• Tips for dealing with beavers
• Beaver Bytes
• Castor wants to erect giant beaver
• Activists upset by Girl Scouts in Alaska who trap, skin beavers
• Girl attacked by rabid beaver
• New Jersey town celebrates its beavers
 
Headlines that kept me from reading the article
A good headline should entice the reader. These made me want to avoid the article. There are some things I just don’t want to know. 

• Police: Man slashes friend in argument over who had the hairiest buttocks
• Man shot in drunken penis-size competition
• Grits argument turns violent
• A game with handcuffs, blindfold and a paring knife
• Charges Dropped In Scrotum Biting
• Andy Dick kills son’s hamster
• Violent intruder just looking for love like mama used to make
• Iceland Suffering Through Testicle Shortage
• Get a whiff of this…
• Experts sniff out why Uranus gas is silent but violent

What the…
The world is a crazy place. Don’t take my word for it, here are the headlines.

• Rocker Enslaved And Humiliated By Robots
• ‘TIME-TRAVELER’ BUSTED FOR INSIDER TRADING
• Man Cuts Off Penis, Tosses It to His Wife
• From footsies to frog jobs, female felons getting it inside
• DIY coffins ease retirement boredom
• Woman chased by fake alien sues reality TV show
• Police discover tempest in a toilet
• Boy breeds beetles in his body
• Police Say Man Swallowed Sister’s Finger
• Bog robs man of $500 ‘pig and pussy’ record
• Dead woman told to tidy grave
• Dead driver given fine
• Man shows how he lost thumb, and loses finger
• Drug workers cleared to give free needles to kids
• War will see vagina violence rise
• Shuttle crew studies sprites and elves
• Crazed juggler put away
• Robber shoots man, steals his biscuits
• Cannibal reveals man-eater network
• Mom sucks son’s blood for shredding money
• Ohio Teens Forced To Walk Through Town With Donkey
• MARILYN MANSON ACCUSED OF RIPPING OFF HIS PENIS
• Train doors close on groper’s gonads, sets perversion off on different track 
 
“I can’t believe they just used that headline.”

• Porn viewers held under stiff penal code
• Spanking the big monkey
• It’s Hard To Pop A Cherry On Shirley Temple Soda
• Sheep farmers report having good times, good prices right now
• Masochistic meat beater drops by cop box to choke chicken
• Rape Nuts
• Hobbit Astin Gets Trim
• A Hard-on for Numbers
• No sex in Madonna’s new tale
• Sasebo girls welcome seaman with open legs
• Bush Lays Bare Split with France Over Iraq
• Jackson Beats It
• Man Jerks Off at Women’s Center Fair
• Fit me baby one more time
• BRITNEY’S BREASTS THROB
• Red-faced love hotel antics bite to the bone
• You’re a Better Man If You Eat Like a Woman
• YOU CAN STICK YOUR BUNG, BING
• Zoo vistors face fines over balls
• Watson urges ‘hot balls’ action
• Texas Monthly’s Bullshit
• Hopping mad fat boy skips to one-legged victory
• Two One-Legged Inmates Skip Jail
• Is it shuttle debris, or is it burnt toast?
• Hicks battling deafness
• WHAT THE FUQUA?! Mistress sues “Training Day” director, Antoine Fuqua.
• Sex trade pulls punters’ plugs with dark, wet surge of energy

The evil SUV
Rush Limbaugh has a theory that reporters consider SUVs autonomous, nature-destroying, gas-sucking agents of Satan. Headlines don’t prove him wrong. 

• SUV is identified in Tipton slaying
• SUV Backs Over Sunbather In Volusia
• Woman, 39, Killed By SUV
• Waiter saves patrons from SUV
• SUV rear-ends 18-wheeler; Four dead
• Twelve injured as SUV crashes into Broward bus
• SUV Strikes, Injures Officer Aiding Motorist
• SUV plows into garage, passengers flee

But it looks like nature is striking back:
• 2 killed when tree hits SUV on road

Of course, the media does occasionally mention the owners, too:
• SUV owner ignorant
• Are Hummer Owners Idiots?

Slow news day.
When the news well runs dry. 
• Skynyrd Guitarist Not Sure About War With Iraq
• Lieberman For, Against Tax Breaks
• Feds Investigate Sandwich Stolen From Break Room
• Dispelling myths on swollen scrotums
• Nipple Enlargements: More Common Than You’d Think
• Rocket gang kill gerbil
• NANCY PELOSI TAKES A LEAK
• Billy Connolly gets penis stuck in zip on plane
• 7-inch french fry for sale on eBay
• Def Leppard cooks, shops in Wichita 
 
Stop.  Please stop. 
When good headlines go bad … really bad. 

• Gibson to the “Max” Again
• Rael-life mystery Who inspired cult
• Local Taco Bell Worker Tests Positive For Hepatitis Customers Urged To Make A Run For The Doctor
• DRIVERS GA$-PING
• Trucker ‘Bear-ly’ Saves Woman
• Houston, We Have An Omelette
• Houston, We Have A Weight Problem
• Local Pooper Scooper Always Is On Dooty
• Jacko Keeps Coming Backo
• Doc: Jacko Attacko No Joke-o
• Handling Jackson without gloves
• ‘Hannibal’ star sinks teeth into marriage
• Dude, you’ve been busted
• I don’t keep up with the Zeta-Joneses
• CATHERINE ZE-TARTY JONES
• Halle’s comet
• Halle `Berry’ Beautiful To Plastic Surgeons
• PASS THE ‘BEENE’ DIP
• Nicole Using a Q-Tip? Not What We Ear
• Mighty mouse just fails to put cat out
• The patient patient didn’t go off his trolley
• Stones scalpers no satisfaction
• The Bucs tops here
• See Bucs run. See Bucs run over the Raiders
• Venus rises to the occasion
• Farmers see alpacas as a stable investment
• Not Gigli-ing now
• Lewd ladies living free and easy in lecherous lodgings wired for smut


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