When Tanzania clipped wings of Kenya Airways

Headlines are perhaps the most important selling window of a story because they give readers a glimpse of what the story is about, thus enticing them to read it. In journalism school, students are often taught that a good headline should be like a miniskirt; short enough to arouse interest in the subject, but long enough to cover it [subject].

Coining headlines is therefore one of the most engaging endeavours in the newsroom and this is mainly the work of editors. It is easy to get it right but also very easy to get it wrong, or to simply go unnoticed by the readers.

A great headline typically will pick on the imagery in the story, will often be quippy or witty, and memorable. Some of the most referred to memorable headlines in Uganda journalism are, “Bad news: Akena Adoko is back” that was famously coined and published in the Economy newspaper in 1980 (or thereabouts) by its editor Kakooza Mutale (now a retired major) in reference to the return of the notorious head of General Service Unit (GSU) during Obote I regime.

The other witty headline, again in a local newspaper in 1980s is, “Obote rapes Katherine” for a story about students of Dr Obote College Boroboro, a boys school, invading St Katherine Girls Secondary School, and reportedly raping some of them.

Of course there have been some goofy ones, like the headline in Uganda Times in the 1970s, “Amin rapes Nyerere”, that sent the editor Ilakut Ben Bella to exile. The headline should have read, “Amin raps Nyerere” but someone by error changed it to “rapes”! Elsewhere around the world, you will find a trove of witty and goofy headlines like, “Miracle cure kills fifth patient”, “Safety meeting ends in accident”, “Students cook and serve grandparents”, etc. Just search for witty headlines on the Internet.

This week, there was a witty headline in Daily Monitor that caught my attention (and no doubt that of many readers). It read, “Tanzania clips Kenya’s wings in fight over airlines” (January 17). Kudos to the editor that coined this headline. It was very clever, playing on the imagery of flying airplanes (Air Tanzania and Kenya Airways) and the disagreements over flying rights between the two countries’ respective national airlines.

A cartoon in the Daily Nation of the same day took the witness even further. The cartoonist drew Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu running off with the two wings of a Kenya Airways aircraft that remained on the ground wingless, and in her toolbox was a hacksaw. Desperately running after her were Kenyan minister Musalia Mudavadi and another pleading for return of the wings as they had now accepted Tanzania’s request for Air Tanzania to pick and drop cargo at Kenya’s international airport. Kudos to the cartoonist for humorously summarising the story.Newspapers headlines are mostly a bevy of bad news every day so it is always worthy of a smile when one reads a witty headline such as this on Tanzania vs Kenya regarding their respective national airlines. It is a story one will read! Can we have more of such headlines every day?

Well, as Caroline Harrington, of MarketSmiths, an online copywriting firm, says: “Ultimately, great headlines start with great content. When it comes down to it, headlines are made interesting by the substance and essence of a story itself. Lazy, uninteresting stories merely clog up the already crowded sphere of content that exists — and don’t do a thing to set themselves apart.

                                                                                *******                                                                             READERS HAVE THEIR SAY

Ben Matsiko Kahunga: Refer to your story, “Why-are-choppers-in-free-fall” (Daily Monitor, January 5). General John Garang was First Vice President of Sudan, not South Sudan. South Sudan attained statehood after he had died, though he was poised to be its first President after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the civil war between Sudan government in Khartoum and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/army (SPLM/A), the force behind South Sudan’s independence.

                                                                                Ben Matsiko Kahunga: Refer to your headline, “Uganda is so messed up that clergy feel safer with guns than God, says Bobi Wine” (Daily Monitor, January 5). Not every “preacher” is a clergyman. Clergy refers to the ordained, who get anointed in the sacrament of Holy Order. In the Catholic Church, the clergy are priests and bishops. The religious notably brothers, nuns (sisters), are religious, but not clergy.

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