henry copeland: At root, the tendency toward boring headlines flows from thinking of a newspaper as a bundle. Customers buy entire newspapers, not individual articles. So by the time the reader has opened a newspaper, he’s already a captive audience. That gives newspaper editors little reason to write flashy, eye-catching headlines. In contrast, people read online news one article at a time. Every article is competing with thousands of other articles for the reader’s attention.
- www.washingtonpost.com