One-Armed Criminal's Bad Crime Inspires Great Headline

(July 19) -- Sometimes bad people can inspire great things -- or at least great headlines.

At least that's the case for Manuel Hernandez, 28, of Springfield, Mass.

He was arrested July 13 for allegedly jumping a 68-year-old man and stealing $354 from him.

On the surface, this is a nothing case barely worth a short paragraph -- until you learn certain details about Hernandez.

For instance, he's missing his right arm and goes by the name "Lefty."

Those little details were enough to inspire MassLive.com editor George Graham to write a headline in the vein of the 1982 classic published by the New York Post: "Headless Body in Topless Bar."

Graham's masterpiece? "Springfield Police Charge One-Armed Man With Unarmed Robbery," a headline that earned more ink from The Huffington Post than the crime that inspired it, as well as praise from readers along the lines of "Best headline of the year!" and "I nearly pissed my pants!"

Whether or not "Springfield Police Charge One-Armed Man With Unarmed Robbery" will be considered the equal of "Headless Body in Topless Bar" remains to be seen. That headline has not only been cited as one of the best of all time but also inspired a movie as well as a book about strip club violence.

Perhaps that explains why Graham is being so humble.

"The headline wrote itself," he told AOL News. "It was deadline, and it just came to me. I was almost playing it straight."

But while Graham's headline amuses many readers for the way it hilariously sums up the story, not everyone is laughing.

Veteran newsman Dan Bloom, who grew up in Springfield and now lives in Taiwan, feels the headline crosses a line that shouldn't be crossed.

"A good headline should be clear and easy to understand, direct and to the point," he said by e-mail. "But the 'art' comes in when a good headline writer adds some humor or zest or pizazz to the wording, but not at the expense of clarity or lame humor."

To put it handily, Bloom said that Graham's headline is in poor taste.

"The pun is cute, in a sophomoric way, but it is making fun of a handicapped person, and headlines should not mock people, they should inform the reader," he said. "Yes, humor is good at times, but in this case, the attempt at humor is lame, no pun intended, and wrongheaded -- again, no headline pun intended."

Graham, a news veteran with 20 years' experience, will allow that his headline does capture the salient points of the story, but admitted he didn't run his hilarious effort by anyone and didn't wait to hear the roar of chuckles from his newsroom co-workers.

"After writing the headline, I went home," he said.

Meanwhile, Hernandez was unavailable to give a hand to this story.