Let’s stop arguing with headlines that the writer didn’t write

Published October 31, 2014 1:54pm ET



If you’re not a journalist, here’s a trade secret: The person who wrote an article often isn’t the same person who wrote the headline.

Editors write many headlines — certainly in print, often online. They edit the headlines for length, for house style, for eye-grabbing capability, for click-bait and for search-engine optimization. Sometimes we writers submit a headline that we expect will be rewritten. Sometimes we don’t even bother.

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