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So the 74th annual Tulip Festival was another big success in Albany, and there was an interesting headline, or should I say HEADLINES, to come out of it:
- (Times Union) First nonbinary Tulip Queen crowned at annual Albany festival
- (CBS 6) Sam Mills crowned as 2022 Tulip Queen
- (Spectrum News) Capital Region comes out for Tulip Festival this weekend
Same festival, but very different ways of reporting on it. Headlines are designed to do two things: one, grab your attention, and two, state in one sentence the big party of the story being covered. In this case we have three very different approaches. One outlet has the word ‘nonbinary’ in the headline, one has the name ‘Sam Mills’ in the headline, and one doesn’t mention the Tulip Queen contest at all in the headline. In fact, Spectrum’s story does not reference ‘nonbinary’ in any way in its story, it merely points out that Sam Mills was named queen. (The CBS 6 story doesn’t use ‘nonbinary’ in the headline, but does mention it in its column.)
So who’s right? I offer no opinion on the matter here, and maybe this isn’t a ‘right/wrong’ kind of a thing. But which headline closest mirrors what you would have used? Do you have a visceral negative reaction to any of the ones that were used? And is this a conversation you feel free to express an opinion about? These are just some of the questions I had while reading headlines this weekend…