The Sun is asking its readers to be sub-editors. It has challenged its 690,000 Twitter followers to write a headline for the following day’s newsprint issue.
The #PunInTheSun initiative kicked off today, with Twitter user @Kie9ward writing the headline “Kim swears it well”, which appeared on page 14 over a story about Andy Murray’s fiancé, Kim Sears, wearing a Parental Advisory T-shirt during the Australian Open final.
It is a new twist on the call for user-generated material, and it is slated to be a regular feature in a paper renowned for its puns and memorable headlines.
I hope the paper has a better experience of readers contributing headlines than I did on my first night as stand-in chief sub on the Sun back in the early 1970s.
On deadline, with several stories yet to process, I received a phone call: “I’m just a reader,” he began, and then asked: “How much do you pay for headlines?”
“What? What headline?”
“You know the threat of a Post Office strike is over. Well, I’ve got the perfect headline for it”.
“What’s that?”
“I can’t tell you until you tell me how much you pay”.
“Look, I’ve never known us pay for a headline. But, if we did, we’d need to know what it is first”.
“OK, I’m going to trust you not to turn me over. Are you ready? Post Off-Ice. Geddit?”
I did my best to let him down gently, despite shouts from the back bench to get the copy down. “Thanks for thinking of us,” I said. “Try the Mirror”.
I looked to the ceiling and then noticed broad grins from a group of reporters across the room. But I did get free drinks in the Tipperary that night.
