The Plain Dealer editor’s second blog entry sends a salute to headline writers:
The headline writers are the unrecognized heroes of the newsroom. They are the last set of eyes to examine a story before the reader sees it and they write the words that the greatest majority of readers see.
This is one of the subtle reasons why working the desk appeals to me: what I do is essential; reporters’ stories can be held till tomorrow, stories can be run without graphics or photos, but the pages must be built and somebody has to do that job. Down side is there are no long lunches and no calls to the city desk to say “oh, sorry, I couldn’t nail down that section front I was working on.”
Of course at some point they’ll farm my job out to the back office in Bangalore and I’ll be sweeping floors for a living again. But I’ll worry about that when the time comes.