A headline is text at the top of a newspaper article, indicating the nature of the article below it.

It is sometimes termed a news hed, a deliberate misspelling that dates from production flow during hot type days, to notify the composing room that a written note from an editor concerned a headline and should not be set in type.

Format

Headlines are written in much larger type size than the article text, and often in a different font entirely. Headlines are often in sentence case, although title case is often used in the USA.

Headline conventions include normally using present tense even when discussing events that happened in the recent past; omitting forms of the verb "to be" in certain contexts; and removing short articles like "a" and "the". Most newspapers feature a very large headline on their front page, dramatically describing the biggest news of the day. Words chosen for headlines are often short, giving rise to headlinese.

A headline may also be followed by a smaller secondary headline, often called subhead or "deck hed", which gives more information.

Russ WillisonWho: date=March 2009 describes headlines as the "barb on the hook."

Production of headlines within the editorial environment

Headlines are generally written by copy editors, but may also be written by the writer, the page layout designer or a news editor or managing editor.

The film The Shipping News has an illustrative exchange between the protagonist, who is learning how to write for a local newspaper, and his publisher:

Publisher: It's finding the center of your story, the beating heart of it, that's what makes a reporter. You have to start by making up some headlines. You know: short, punchy, dramatic headlines. Now, have a look, at dark clouds gathering in the sky over the ocean what do you see? Tell me the headline.

Protagonist: HORIZON FILLS WITH DARK CLOUDS?

Publisher: IMMINENT STORM THREATENS VILLAGE.

Protagonist: But what if no storm comes?

Publisher: VILLAGE SPARED FROM DEADLY STORM.

In the United States, headline contests are sponsored by the American Copy Editors Society, the National Federation of Press Women, and many state press associations.

Unusual headlines

Occasionally, the need to keep headlines brief leads to unintentional double meanings, if not double entendres. For example, if the story is about the president of Iraq trying to acquire weapons, the headline might be IRAQI HEAD SEEKS ARMS. Or if some agricultural legislation is defeated in the United States House of Representatives, the title could read FARMER BILL DIES IN HOUSE.

• WALL ST. LAYS AN EGG - Variety on Black Monday (1929)
• STICKS NIX HICK PIX - Variety writing that rural moviegoers preferred urban films (1935)
• DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN - The Chicago Tribune reporting the wrong election winner (1948)
• FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD - New York Daily News reporting the denial of a federal bailout (1975)
• SICK TRANSIT'S GLORIOUS MONDAY - New York Daily News reporting a state transit bailout (1980)
• GOTCHA! - The UK Sun on the torpedoing of the Argentine ship Belgrano and sinking of a gunboat during the Falklands War (1982)
• HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR - New York Post on a local murder (1983)
• GREAT SATAN SITS DOWN WITH THE AXIS OF EVIL - The UK The Times on US-Iran talks (2007)
• SUPER CALEY GO BALLISTIC CELTIC ARE ATROCIOUS - Sun on Inverness Caledonian Thistle beating Celtic in the Scottish Cup
• FREDDIE STARR ATE MY HAMSTER - Sun on Lea La Salle's claim that the comedian had eaten her pet in a sandwich. Max Clifford later admitted that the story was a fabrication.
• ICE CREAM MAN HAS ASSETS FROZEN - BBC News: An ice cream salesman has his assets frozen for suspectedly smuggling tobacco