Break out the clue bat

A few observations on headlines:
1) When in doubt, use the grownup word
2) If you think your audience understands your shorthand, think again
3) Especially if you want the shorthand to mean two different things in adjacent heds

I'd almost rather have "solons" than "reps" in the centerpiece,* but there's an easy fix for that. Since the column decides to address them directly, the hed can too, so you can drop the auxiliary and at least get "GOP lawmakers:" into the top line. You'd have to capitalize the "C" beginning the second line, but there still might be room to squeeze in the missing preposition "to." It's still hard to tell whether the elephant is coming or going -- and, again, if you're betting on your audience to get Elephant = Republican on the first go from a Photoshop,** you should probably go get some more chips now -- but we almost have a usable hed.


As opposed to the one in the left-hand column, which should just be discarded. I'd be happy if headline writers discarded "Dem" altogether (see above under "grownup word"), but "Rep" is right out for "Republican," especially when it's cuing something else on the same page.

And neither one is necessary. Nothing in the column -- which is about the local constabulary playing fast and loose with individual privacy and why that's an especially bad idea here -- holds up the hands-across-the-water bit that the hed writer chose to emphasize. Oddly, the online hed is reasonably sensible:

... and that's where the print hed should steer.

There's not a lot to say for the Sunday opinion section in general, though at least all of Mitch Albom's energy seems to have been directed elsewhere. Maybe we could start by not annoying the readers who've managed to make it this far into the paper.

* Yes, it's that bad.
** I'll acknowledge that cartoons work differently, because that's kind of the point.