Questions in headlines

In our overview of different kinds of ledes in last week’s class, Jeremy noted several kinds of ledes to avoid, including asking questions. Earlier today, I saw a story that had a question as the headline: "Does having a conscience make a doctor unprofessional?" Interestingly, this site (MercatorNet) uses questions in headlines quite a bit: "Ukraine’s revolution is over. Now what?"; "Is digital learning the end of education?"; "Can Disney cartoons make your child nicer?" These are just a few samples from the homepage. Granted, this site provides far more news commentary than breaking news, and the first piece I found is definitely opinion in the second half of the story.

After seeing this, however, I was curious to see if major news outlets employed this strategy as well. I looked at the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe. I found several in the New York Times opinion pages, including "What Would Kennan Say to Obama?" and "News Analysis: Can God Make It in Hollywood?" Blog headlines for the Washington Post read: "The tea party turns 5 today. Will it make it to 10?" and "Does the declining deficit mean Obama should embrace the GOP tax plan?" An opinion piece in the Boston Globe had the headline: "Where is our shame?"

It looks like typically there is not much use for questions in hard news headlines, but it is interesting to note the common usage elsewhere all the same.