Headline writers - a dangerous breed

I was looking at what I presume (dangerous thing to do) a Yahoo headline over an Associated Press article.

The headline reads: "Rice: Pakistan must cooperate in terror probe"

MUST cooperate? MUST ?

Most parents know that if you tell a child he or she "must" do something the child is less than enthusiastic about, the child will resist. Likewise countries' politicians.

The U.S. already has a "bad rep" with many counties around the world - deserved or not, its how the U.S. is perceived by others that counts - so a headline such as the one on Yahoo is either a match to ignite anger or fuel to further inflame anti-U.S. sentiment.

To be fair, the article fails to support the head writer's "must" wording. Rice is "sending a message" in very clear terms to the Pakistani government, but I never saw the word "must" in her admonishment.

Back when Hector was a pup, I got a management lesson from a U.S. Forest Service officer named John Glenn - no relation to the Marine; the manager of the local Forest Service office said a good manager (by extension Secretary of State) should never need to "tell" someone to do something; it should be enough to "suggest" a job needs to be done.

A variation of the honey vs. vinegar to catch flies admonishment.

There was a time when I wrote "heds." I wrote them for "major metropolitan dailies," suburban dailies, and weeklies. Since it also was an era when reporters wrote headline leeds (leads), hed writers were expected to write titles that accurately reflected the article.

Granted, that was sometimes trying and it helped to have both a large vocabulary and neighbors with equally large vocabularies to ferret out "right-size" synonyms. Euphemisms were discouraged.

I wonder how a person in Pakistan would react to the Yahoo headline. Especially a person with English as a Second Language.

Add to the above that most non-US and Canadian newspapers I have seen use passive voice in their heds; they "back in" to the subject. Drove me nuts when I lived overseas.

Taken altogether, the "Pakistan must cooperate in terror probe" hed is inflammatory and could be, indeed probably will be, counter-productive. Or maybe because I am who I am, I am over reacting. Maybe the Pakistanis will read the Yahoo headline and ignore the words and tone.

It is both what we say and how we say it.

I agree with Ms. Rice that Pakistan's government should look into a government connection (even if only ignoring a threat) to the terror in India if only because the same mentality can work against the government. But I don't believe we - the United States - should tell Pakistan, as a parent might with a small child, to "do" anything.

Just a thought.

Yohanon
Yohanon.Glenn @ gmail.com