Student Newsletter Headline Writing Guide: How Student Journalists Write Headlines That Get Read

Most readers decide whether to read a story in the time it takes to read the headline. For print publications, the headline is what stops or passes the eye on the page. For digital newsletters, the subject line determines whether the email gets opened at all. Headlines are not packaging for content. They are the first editorial decision the reader makes.

Specificity is the core principle

A headline that tells a reader what happened is more useful than one that tells them what category of thing happened. "School Board Approves $2.4 Million for New Library Wing" is specific. "School Board Makes Budget Decision" is a category label. The specific headline tells readers something. The category label asks them to do work to find out if the content is worth their time.

Training student journalists to write specific headlines requires teaching them to identify the most important and concrete element of a story and lead with it. What did the school board approve, reject, or decide? What did the team win, lose, or accomplish? What did the study find?

Accuracy above all

A headline that attracts readers by misrepresenting the story loses their trust when they read the story. Headlines must accurately represent the content. The temptation to make a story sound more dramatic or definitive than it is produces headlines that undermine the publication's credibility.

Check every headline against the story's lead paragraph. If the headline claims something the story only suggests, or overreaches beyond what the reporting established, revise it.

Digital subject lines

Email subject lines have additional constraints. Most email clients show 40 to 60 characters before truncating. The most important information should come first. "New Cafeteria Hours Take Effect Monday" leads with the news. "Important Update About Changes to the School Lunch Schedule" buries it.

Avoid subject line conventions that signal low-quality email: exclamation points, all-caps words, and phrases like "IMPORTANT" or "You need to see this." Readers who receive this kind of subject line develop a pattern of skipping it.

The multiple options practice

Require writers and editors to generate three headline options for every story. The first is usually the obvious one. The second requires more thought. The third often surfaces the angle that makes the story worth reading. Choosing among options forces a more deliberate decision than approving the first headline that comes to mind.

Learning from examples

Keep a running collection of headlines, from the student publication, from local papers, and from national journalism, that the editorial board uses for workshop exercises. Rewriting weak headlines as a team builds the skill in a way that individual feedback on individual stories cannot.