Back to basics

The annoying thing about the journalism profession is that it seems as though successful and effective writing is 'capped' in the sense that once a journalist has the tricks of the trade down packed they cannot continue to improve. I say this mostly in regards to news writing, because from scouring through websites it seems that the more basic and traditional writing formats always win. Journalists who try to push the boundaries of news style or try to be fancy often end up being less effective.

The Sydney Morning Herald has an article about the demise of the Australian Dollar value since the economic downturn. However, for such a numerical and serious topic, the journalist unfortunately elected to go for a more 'colourful' headline - with the effect of ( i believe),  leaving the reader not really sure what the article is about.

The headline read:

Aussie's slide from parity to parody

The problem is that the article, which appeared on the front page of the SMH, was not accompanied with a lengthy sub-heading underneath and thus would of deterred many people who would of otherwise been very interested in this topic.