"STREAMER" HEADLINES

Evening Star, Issue 23381, 26 September 1939, Page 11

"STREAMER" HEADLINES

Deprecation in the House of Commons of sensational headlines in our newspapers (as well as of alarming newspaper bills) may prompt some inquiry about the first appearance in British journalism of the “ scare ” and " streamer ” headline, says the ‘ Manchester Guardian.’ As a rule everything which can be called sensational in journalism is said to have reached us from the other side of the Atlantic, though this suspicion is not always borne out by facts. In case, however, the charge can he maintained in the case of hoa'dlines, it does happen that a definite claim has been made in the United States for the first thing of its kind in that country. Willis J. Abbot, writing in • The World Goes By,’ of his own experiences in American journalism, recalls the days when he was working on the ‘ Chicago Times ’ in the first half of the JB9o’s wfien it was owned by Carter Henry Harrison, who, among other things, was mayor in the World's Fair year and was shot down by a madman. “ Under the Harrison regime,” writes Abbot, “ the ‘ Times ’ was a precursor of the liberal dailies of Inter years. Even some of the most audacious ‘ innovations ’ credited later to Hearst or Brisbane in fact found first publicity in its columns. While not

particularly proud of the fact, 1 cannot help chronicling that the first fnll-nage ‘ streamer ’ known to the daily Press appeared in this paper, which in this fashion cried out: ‘Abolish the Senate', ’ ”