'Drop dead': a 50-year-old headline still has something to say
One dog barking: An occasional column by John Dineen
Some headlines are famed for the momentous events they herald.
“Men walk on moon.”
“Nixon resigns.”
“Red Sox win World Series.”
But for journalists, it rarely, if ever, got better than Oct. 30, 1975, when the New York Daily News led with President Gerald Ford’s announcement that he would not support federal assistance for the then-struggling city:
“Ford to City: Drop Dead.”
The New York Times last week commemorated that headline on its 50th anniversary in appropriate fashion: an appreciation of its lasting hold on journalists, written by none other than Bill Brink, a Times editor and son of the Daily News managing editor who wrote it, William J. Brink.
Given the enduring legacy of his father’s inspiration, Brink the son puckishly offers this advice:
A tip to headline writers: Avoid commas, semicolons and the word “castigate,” if you want to have impact. The Times’s corresponding headline that day — “Ford, Castigating City, Asserts He’d Veto Federal Bailout; Offers Bankruptcy Bill” — stands as a verbose counterpoint to “Drop Dead.”
Yeah, I didn’t remember that one, either, Bill.
Brink mulled why the headline has had such staying power:
“Drop Dead” is generally considered one of the two most memorable headlines of the last half-century, along with The New York Post’s 1983 gem, “Headless Body in Topless Bar.” But why is it so enduring? I wouldn’t want to overinterpret its social or cultural significance. After all, the beauty of the headline was in its simplicity. As Margalit Fox wrote for The New York Times in my father’s obituary, the headline delivered “the power of a knockout punch.” When we get hit hard in the face, we tend to remember it.
But the headline also had the benefit of truth-telling, at a time when truth was easier to discern and less open to argument. There were only three major television networks, with anchors who enjoyed respect and credibility. Time and Newsweek still mattered. The Daily News itself still carried heft as the paper of New York’s working class, with a weekday circulation of around two million.
More significantly, media consumers didn’t face a fire hose of conflicting or false messages that distorted their understanding of events. Today, we don’t even agree on facts.
Many factors contribute to our inability to agree on facts: a sclerosis inflicted on our political institutions by private interests, propaganda outlets masquerading as news organizations, social media algorithms that reward rage and conflict.
But surely the tendency of mainstream media to use facts as a shield, to obscure simpler, more compelling truths, is a contributor.
Irony lurks beneath the surface of Brink’s tribute to his father’s inspiration: It appears in a paper that never would have run such a headline. It’s easy to imagine Times editors back then sniffing at its simplicity, its technical inaccuracy: Ford didn’t say the city should “drop dead.”
What makes “drop dead” memorable, besides its brash, pitch-perfect tabloid attitude, is the way it homes in on a truth with ruthless economy of language. The Daily News stripped away non-essential details, distilling Ford’s decision to its essence: This, the News told us, this is what Ford did. He told us to drop dead.
Is there a lesson here for journalists 50 years later?
Mountains of words have been written about what the nation is enduring right now, and I haven’t read any mainstream coverage that says the Constitution has been told repeatedly to drop dead. Many, many trees, are covered, but never the mention of a forest afire.
Surely that warrants a headline, no? Before it becomes an obituary?
An aside: The year after “drop dead” ran, when Ford lost his bid to stay in the White House, I was keeping company with a lot of Republicans. They hated that headline.
I kept my counsel.
Also in the news
U.S. designates Nigeria a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ after Trump threat over alleged attacks on Christians
Microsoft to ship 60,000 Nvidia AI chips to United Arab Emirates under U.S.-approved deal
Trump administration says SNAP will be partly funded in November
Senate leaders prepare pivot to new bill to end shutdown
Four House members release bipartisan ‘principles’ for extending Obamacare subsidies
Tuesday is America’s first major Election Day since Trump returned to the White House. Here’s what to watch for.
’60 Minutes’ invites the audience into the editing process on Trump interview
OpenAI, Amazon sign $38 billion deal for AI computing power
KFF: Steps Obamacare marketplace shoppers can take to ensure they make the right choices for the upcoming plan year