Headline Ideas

Today I started brainstorming some possible headlines in order to get working on my table of contents and cover. Because I’ve already decided on a theme, this was an expedited process. Some conventions that you will notice are inflammatory language and noticeable bias. This is not done to be disingenuous, but rather to fit the expectations of a partisan political magazine. This magazine will still go beyond the conventions of a one-sided magazine, because the target audience is more refined to professionals rather than youngsters or more casual followers of politics.

1.How Republicans Want to Drag Jobs into the Past, and Why Democrats Won’t Let Them

2.What Congress can Learn from the Atari Democrats

3.Coding: the New Coal

4.The New Space Race: Universal Tech Literacy

These are good examples, and one of them could easily become my cover story or two-page spread. I could easily see a spread using number 4. The story text would be about how imperative it is that we reach a level of tech literacy in which innovation jobs become as accessible to our citizens as manufacturing jobs. (The idea is to create a smarter workforce in industries that can’t be outsourced). It is a “space race” because we must do it before China. The images could include images like a computer lab in a school, two pictures of children at a computer using a mirror effect, one with a Chinese flag in the background and one with an American flag in the background. The rest could be text and images that are linked to portions of the text through the numbering system that I analyzed in the Atlantic article last week.

I also think that number 3 could make a good cover image. If I use this one, than I will have to use number 1 only in the table of contents, Because otherwise the lengthier headline (1) would distract from the central one (3).

Regardless of which I decide to use where, I am glad that I’m starting to have these ideas at all. In my next post, I will discuss my ideas for a cover layout and a list images I will need to capture in order to produce my magazine. I will also begin painting rocks black to look like coal.