Saturday, December 31, 2011

Bizarre Newspaper Headline Awards

Every newspaper does year-enders, you know those things that sum up what happened in the past year that everyone already knows about and which only those who didn't bother following the news the whole year bother reading? We, on the other hand, couldn't give a rat's arse about year-enders. More importantly, we have a hard enough time keeping up with news as it happens and nobody ever pays us to dig stuff up from a whole year.

In that spirit, we present 2011's final awards in the Bizarre Newspaper Headline Contest... yeah, they're not a round-up of all the wonderful headlines that may have entertained us through the year, just the most recent ones we remember. In any case, here they are:


1. The What Else You Gonna Call It Headline Award

Winner: The News Lahore on November 14 for its main lead about a poor donkey that was strapped with explosives that were set off via remote-control in a crowded market in Khyber Agency. Had this been the Express Tribune, we would have been pretty sure this was a misguided pun. But no, with The News Lahore, you know that they mean this in earnest. At least they stayed clear of calling it an 'Ass Bomb.'





2. The Graphic But Gentle Sex Headline Award

Winner: The News Islamabad, November 14 (two awards in one day for The News) for Tariq Butt's story about Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) trying to lure electorally strong politicians into its folds...


Hoover, that PTI is. Bizarrely, that slow sucking had unintended consequences as can be seen from the next award...




3. The Wildly Inappropriate Wording of the Main Headline Award

Winner: The Daily Times, December 10, about the impending return to Pakistani of President Asif Zardari from medical treatment in Dubai... Or so we think.




And you thought his return was anticlimactic!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thumbs down! Didn't make me laugh if it was intended to.

Anonymous said...

hahahhaha too good , XYZ you are the greatest when it comes to humor

Karachi Gal said...

haha.. those keen eyes!
BTW, Pakistan anxiously waited for President saab to come when it seemed he might never to able to.

Anonymous said...

Hilarious...no wonder with all this sucking and coming the country is screwed.

Farwa B Naqvi said...

LOL loved it!!!

Anonymous said...

Hahahaha ..... Genitally gentle

Anonymous said...

Loved this comment....

Anonymous said...

Loved this comment....

Anonymous said...

Nothing of that sort you found in Dawn? Because they are your employers?

Shannon said...

I thrive on twisted humour and creative licence in headlines. Editors that encourage some wacko backstage to express themselves creatively in size 400 bold typeface need medals. I write the headlines for our tabloid and its what I love most about my job. Donkey Bomb was really bad ass. Loved it! Thank you for this post, wish there were more like this :)