As I was doing my daily review of what CNN.com has to offer, I noticed this headline "'Pregnant man' expecting again." I'm sure by now most of us have heard about this miracle man, but possibly not as much as myself. My roommate last year was a slightly obsessive fan of the pregnant man--who has a name by the way, it's Thomas Beatie--and watched the Opera special and every news report she could find on him. After listening to countless reports about the couple I would say I grew a fondness for their story, so when I saw this headline it immediately caught my eye.
But, this isn't about the pregnant man, or my roommates obsession, this is about online headlines. Recently we have been discussing how online headlines need to be able to capture the reader with just a few nouns and a possible verb. I thought this headline did a good job because out of about 20 headlines I was drawn straight to it. Maybe it's my familiarity, or maybe it was good writing. Either way I think that with an online source such as CNN.com headlines should have the power to jump at us.
Here's the link posted by CNN.com for the Larry King Live special with Beatie.
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4 comments:
I think you're right. I think that was a very good headline. However, I'm tempted to say it was mainly becaue of the words "pregnant man." Even if you knew the background of the story, any time someone sees an anomaly such as that, the headline is going to catch the readers' attention. But hey, good choice on the copy editor's part to use those words. They did their job.
Interesting post and good thoughts. This is quite the catchy headline, although a bit misleading as you mentioned since it is not referring to the ever popular story about the pregnant man who we have heard so much about. Life sure is interesting isn't it!
I think this proves how important Web headlines are. We are drawn to the words we know and recognize and become interested in them immediately. It's especially useful when the words can make a connection with the reader, like with you and your roommate.
What a clever ploy! While it may seem a bit deceitful that the news organization didn't fully declare what the story was about up front, they certainly proved their point in an interesting manner.
As for the pregnant man, I'm not too sure that story will ever go out of style.
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