Headlines, above it all

Schwarzenegger Wins
Davis Is Ousted as California Governor in Recall Election

That kind of headline is one reason I like working at the Washington Post. It's a paper-of-record headline. It's a headline that will make sense to people looking at a coffee-table book of front pages in a century or two. It's not a hip, happenin', "let's stay ahead of the news" headline born of a misguided view of newspapers' role.

No, we can't compete with television or radio or the Internet for immediacy. Yes, readers already know what happened. So what? People don't get the morning newspaper because they've been quarantined since they read yesterday's morning newspaper. They get the paper for more depth than TV can provide. They get the paper for a tangible piece of instant history.

As I've said before, the big headline on Nov. 23, 1963, was something along the lines of "Kennedy Assassinated," not "Johnson Mulls Cabinet Picks."