OK, HoldtheFrontPage readers: get your blue pencil stubs out and start writing headlines… with a £10 cash prize to play for!
The story? A syndicate of 12 bus drivers in your town has scooped £3.1m each in the Euro Millions draw.
It happened in Corby Friday week ago, and the Northants Evening Telegraph swung into action to produce great coverage for the Monday edition – beating all the nationals with its detail, with many even crediting the Johnston Press paper’s quotes in their Tuesday follow-ups.
But I’m not sure the Evening Telegraph’s front page headline on 19 March took full advantage of this story.
Yes, it does what it says on the tin, ‘£38m LOTTERY JACKPOT’; but for me it almost looked like a Euro Millions advert, and the underline was too long and small to easily explain that this was actually a news story.
So what would your headline have been? Here are my two suggestions:
- ‘QUIT OR BUS!’ (main header), ‘ 12 Corby Stagecoach drivers scoop £38m’ (underline); or
- ‘ON THE £38m BUSES’ (main header), ‘12 Corby Stagecoach drivers each scoop £3.1m’ (underline).
Can you beat that? I’m sure you can, so fire away on the comments board below, and the best entry by close of play tomorrow (Thursday 29 March) wins the tenner.
The winner will be announced 30 March and, following email exchanges, cash will be sent Special Delivery to home address, (Dyson at Large’s decision is final).
That bit of fun aside, I really do take my hat off to Evening Telegraph reporter David Traynor, who I guess was that weekend’s duty reporter.
He tracked down and convinced one of the winning drivers to give a full and colourful chat, really capturing the magic of the story, and it came with a cracking picture (used too small, I think) by snapper Tony Waugh.
Euro Millions aside, I was disappointed with the amount of space for news – just seven pages containing only 32 stories, poor value in a 48-page paper costing 48p.
True, there was a 16-page ‘Sport on Monday’, and no-one else in the world creates a product with such detailed match reports for Kettering Town, Corby Town, Northampton Town, Northampton Saints and a host of smaller clubs.
This pull-out was action packed and picture led, surely a great pull for sports fans who devour Monday editions in places like Northamptonshire – largely ignored by national sports pages.
But while accepting this top sports content, why on earth did the Evening Telegraph spend another eight pages on a ‘Spree’ pull-out, ‘Taking a look at life’s little luxuries’, most of this taken up with agency fashion, shopping and health and beauty pictures and blurb?
In a larger paper, you might accept this sort of diversion, but when only seven pages contain news there was just far much too much features pap.
Even the use of the news pages themselves was questionable: pages two and three contained a spread on the local Olympic torch route, which would have interested readers; pages five, six and seven were all devoted to the ‘CRAZY HATS WALK 2012’, in aid of a popular local cancer charity.
Nothing wrong with either subject, but once the Euro Millions was laid out on pages one and four it left little else to fill other than pages nine and ten, where the leads were ‘New charity shop will be open soon’ and ‘Delivery worry for town’s traders’.
I did enjoy the ‘Your Say’ spread on pages eight and nine – the lead letter headlined ‘Procreation is not important’, which I just knew was going to be a good read.
But as far as the day’s news was concerned, thank goodness for the lucky bus drivers is all I can say.
And on that note, get writing those headlines… this slightly crumpled ten pound note has got to go.
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£18,000 salary for years … then £38m comes along all at once
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Single ticket to £38m Euro Lottery Jackpot
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All aboard the 38 (Million)!
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Wheels of Fortune !
Bus Drivers strike it rich with £38m Lotto win
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Play up the line about how they’re all planning to take once-in-a-lifetime holidays with ‘ALL ABROAD!’
At the risk of ruling myself out of the running, I think both of your headlines are shockers Steve. Whatever way you look at it, ‘Quit or Bus!’ doesn’t work. Even if you’re implying they are all walking out of their jobs as a result of the win, which isn’t backed up in the story, it doesn’t make sense.
In general I think there’s a case for subs playing splash headlines dead straight, rather than writing puns to impress their colleagues.
I bet the average reader would be more likely to pick up a paper saying ‘BUS DRIVERS SCOOP £38m’ than a torturous ‘Quit or bus!’ headline.
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£38m or Bussed
or
Just the Ticket
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But what about your SEO? C’mon subs, think of the Googlers.
EuroMillions lottery £38 million jackpot for Corby bus drivers | Northants
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Tickets Please! (£38million winning lottery tickets that is)
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They bought a ticket, now the world is their Oyster card.
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Jackpot On The Buses. – I’ll get you (a) Butler!
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No-one wins the lottery then 12 come along at once … (credit goes to our sub editor here);
Lucky bus-tards …
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It’s all very well getting smarmy about this now but whatever happened to the old adage of letting the story tell itself?
The only thing readers want to know is that the jackpot was won on their patch, how much and who scooped it.
Not how clever their local newspaper sub-editors can be.
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Should probably be a double deck headline, but here goes…
BUSMEN’S LOLLY DAY
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Next stop Barbados
or
$38m ticket to ride
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We’re all going on a summer holiday
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I’m with Bobby. The story is an inherently interesting (in a gossipy, I-wonder-if-I-recognise-any-of-them kind of way) and there’s no need to dress it up with puns.
The key is the contrast between the huge sum of money and the not-exactly-affluent image of bus drivers. So something as straight as BUS DRIVERS WIN £38M or BUS DRIVER MILLIONAIRES would work for me.
On the original headline, the main flaw is using the word JACKPOT instead of WIN. As Steve says, it makes it read rather like a Lottery ad, or at best a story about an imminent jackpot. Changing it to £38M LOTTERY WIN works better already.
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The Wheels on the Bus go Pound, Pound, Pound…(x 38m)!
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The driver on the bus has pounds and pounds
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Surely it should Off The Buses
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CHING CHING, ALL ABOARD THE GRAVY TRAIN
or
Double Decker Delight
or
BUS-MEN’s HOLIDAY
or
£38m and BUS-t
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“Lazy bus drivers fail to turn up for work”
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Thanks for so many enthusiastic entries into this bit of fun. And the winner is… find out here http://htfpnew.adaptive.co.uk/2012/news/who-won-the-lolly-in-dyson%e2%80%99s-headline-quiz/
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