My first full-time journalism job was working as a copy editor (and music columnist) for The Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette. Thus, I spent most of my time editing stories, designing pages and, of course, writing headlines.

Sometimes reporters liked my headlines and sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes readers liked my headlines and sometimes they didn’t. When readers hated my headlines, they usually called the reporter who wrote the story and yelled at them. Why? Because, like most news consumers, they didn’t realize that reporters rarely write the headlines that run with their stories.

As someone who went on to spend years as a reporter and columnist, I really wish more readers understood this basic fact about the news business.

This brings us — once again — to a question about a headline. If you read The Washington Post online, or follow Twitter, you saw this blunt headline:

Prominent Virginia pastor who said ‘God is larger than this dreaded virus’ dies of covid-19

However, if you read the dead-tree-pulp edition of the Post, you saw this:

Pastor preached about virus that took his life

As you would expect, some people — including former GetReligionista Mark Hemingway — raised questions about that first headline. I thought that it was accurate, but rather cruel. It could be read as an attempt to mock (a) this preacher, (b) God or (c) both. The second headline offered a mild statement of the facts.

If the goal is to evaluate work in the Post, which matters most — a click-bait headline or the contents of the actual news story?