When did the wording of news headlines change?

[spanishpainting]

And why?

I'm just a bit intrigued. This awful story about the lawyer dying in Laos due to methanol poisoning – when I first saw it, the headline was something like "Briton Simone White dies in Laos..." Imo, using somebody's name like this suggests we have already heard of them/will be aware of who they are.

A couple of decades ago, headlines wouldn't have been worded like this – it would just have been "British woman dies in Laos..." and then mention her name in the body of the article. Not any more, it seems.

I know, I know, it's a tiny, not very important point, but I'm just interested.

I've never thought about this before but now I'm wondering if it's to do with search engine optimisation. So if you Google the name either now or in the future, the news story will come up.

You're right, it is a bit strange and the wording does suggest we'd already know of the person. My phone gets the bbc breaking news alerts pop up and one came through for this woman with the headline you've written, and 10 mins ago I just had another related to the same case "Australian backpacker Holly Bowles confirmed as sixth tourist to die from suspected methanol poisoning".

I've no idea why it happens though. Are headlines in general getting longer?

SEO means that longer, more detailed headlines work better for clicks, so this means that names etc can start to enter the text, whereas traditional human journalism was all about short headlines that caught attention in fewer words, to entice readers to read on. Now, the aim is just to get the click.

Yes, it's SEO - search engine optimisation- so that the story performs better in Google searches etc

Ah, of course – SEO makes total sense. They do sound so long and clunky these days, but that'll be the reason.

I think it's just all the clickbaity shit and search engine optimisation.

You see lots of 'Warning to Britons with red passports using Ryanair, Easyjet or Jet2 about BIG CHANGES for holidays to Tenerife' type headlines and you click through and find it's some nonsense about passport requirements that have been in place for at least a couple of years now.

It's obviously there to drive traffic for the adverts, but I don't know how that turns into money because I can't see anyone actually clicking through and buying anything.

I thought a famous actor had died the other day because it came up on a ticker headline on a news website I was on as "Actor pays tribute to Famous Actor" (obviously their actual names were used).
Famous actor had not died. It was just an interview and the other actor had basically said about how great the famous one was, brilliant to work with, nice guy etc.
Isn't "pays tribute" something you say when someone has died? I see it a lot for people who aren't dead 🤔

I know OP, I was the same. I thought she was someone famous that I just hadn't heard of!

I suppose the other thing in this particular case is that there have been multiple fatalities so its identifying who has died when others may still be critically ill.

RIP Simone, tragic outcome for all the families involved