The first example is that of a missed opportunity. We don't always get stories that cry out for a hit-it-on-the-nail headline based on a clever play on words. When one does come along, seize it!
For example, I found the chance to write this headline:
Diplomatic Impunity
[A foreign diplomat here had allegedly driven his car in a drunken manner and knocked down several people, killing one of them. He used his diplomatic immunity status to hinder police investigations. He then made wild allegations about our system of justice before fleeing the country.]
The example below is what I felt could have been a better written (and headlined) offbeat story that appeared in the "Slice of life" column in today's ST (page A22):
The first two paragraphs of the printed story are:
A Nigerian comedian has had the last laugh on drug enforcement agents. After more than three weeks in jail, he failed to produce the evidence of drug smuggling they had alleged despite an exhaustive search of his waste.
Babatunde Omidina... was arrested as he was trying to board a Paris-bound flight from Lagos airport last month.
[The story goes on to to say he had "allegedly tested positive to drug ingestion", that he was detained for 24 days, and that his jailers "closely monitored" his 18 bowel movements. But "agents found no drugs -- only a kind of local porridge. He looked frail and emaciated.]
The elements of a funny (and punny) story are all there but it was not written that way, and the sub's headline was equally stolid: "Oh pooh! No evidence".
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How would I rewrite it? Let's start with the headline, then the story:
Cops free man: No prima faeces case
Nigerian drug busters thought they had a prima facie case of smuggling. They had arrested popular comedian Babatunde Omidina at Lagos airport, before he boarded a Paris-bound flight last month.
Maybe he had looked bloated to them. Arrested by drug enforcement agents, he allegedly tested positive to drug ingestion. That was when his gruelling ordeal began.
He was detained for 24 days, during which his jailers closely monitored his 18 bowel movements. But there was no flush of victory for the cops. No drugs. All they found was a kind of local gruel.
The comedian, since freed and looking frail and emaciated, did not find the episode funny, sources said.
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For the meaning of the term "prima facie", see:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/prima+facie
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I'll wrap up this posting with my second example -- an insing.com headline that is both bad and strange, ie humanly impossible (unless, as the 1967 Bond movie title goes, "You Only Live Twice"):
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