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This may not be relevant, but extremely interesting. (Or it may be both, neither, or one of the two.) I did not crop the column in deference to the columnist Temple, so scroll to the bottom for the interesting stuff about Denver Mayor Wellington Webb's daughter being in the house at the time the suspected terrorist was arrested. Probably nothing.
Rocky Mountain News
Temple:
Coverage sometimes bruises egos
July 27, 2002

They seem so simple.

A few words strung together to give the main point of a story - to tell readers why they should be interested.

But headlines are an art.

And often the cause of much consternation.

By their very nature, headlines must simplify. They can't include all the facts.

Last week, I heard from public officials upset over two headlines because they thought the headlines were unfair at best - or even worse, mean-spirited. They raised serious issues, and I thought you might be interested in them.

Bruce Caughey, spokesman for the Douglas County School District, wrote about our coverage of the retirement of Superintendent Rick O'Connell after 21 years.

The Denver Post wrote a story in which they interviewed O'Connell and the president of the school board. So naturally, it was all positive.

The Rocky's Robert Sanchez actually did some work. He interviewed four people, including three outside the district. He also went back into the files and recapped the accomplishments - as well as the controversy - of O'Connell's tenure, producing a box listing his legacy.

The main headline said, "Seasoned superintendent to retire," with smaller type reading, "O'Connell's tenure with Douglas County an anomaly in field." It was the headline on the jump page that galled Bruce. It simply said, "O'Connell: Target of criticism during tenure."

"Sanchez left the mistaken impression that O'Connell's career was rife with conflict, and your headline writer shored up this misconception," Bruce wrote.

"I thought you would want to know that I believe 99 percent of the education and business leaders in this state would not concur with the Rocky Mountain News headline nor the tenor of the story."

I've got two bits of news for Bruce, a travel writer who's contributed to the News in the past.

After 21 years in a high-profile job, if somebody hasn't been the target of criticism, he hasn't been alive. The public recognizes that goes with the territory. It doesn't mean that a person hasn't done a good job.

But most important, at the Rocky, we don't write our stories and headlines for the state's education and business leaders.

We know what most of them would like us to say.

They're great, and their friends in these professions are great, too.

We write for our readers. They're the folks who send their children to the schools and pay the taxes to support them.

The other complaint this week came from Mayor Wellington Webb.

He called me, very unhappy with the front-page headlines about the arrest of a Denver native in the war on terror. The banner wasn't the problem. But a smaller headline below said "FBI detains former relative of Mayor Webb in connection with alleged ties to bin Laden."

Now the reality is that I like the mayor. He was a good friend to Gene Amole in his final months, and his aide, Andrew Hudson, was instrumental in organizing the celebration of Gene's life and the renaming of Elati Street outside our building in Gene's honor.

But that doesn't mean we always agree.

And one thing the mayor definitely disagrees with me on is the relevance of his relationship to the terror suspect.

The mayor told me he thinks we intentionally stretch as far we can to make him look bad. It's the way the mayor has felt for years - so I knew his call would be coming.

Andrew wrote me that the headline was "hurtful and completely unnecessary."

"I'm just terribly disappointed and surprised that you would allow this to happen."

I feel differently. You see, I think it's pretty darn interesting that the raid occurred in a home now maintained by the ex-wife of the mayor's son, Allen Sr. We're talking about a terror suspect here. Not a burglar.

What made the connection even more unusual was that the mayor's granddaughter, cousin to James Ujaama, was in the house.

"Neighbors said the mayor's 15-year-old granddaughter, Jaime, ran out of the surrounded home," our story reported.

The teen-ager was hysterical and alleged that officers had put a gun to her head, neighbors said. (Police later denied that.)

"She was crying and really scared."

So: Cops put a gun to the head of the mayor's granddaughter in a house belonging to the family of her mother, who is the ex-wife of the mayor's son.

Seems pretty interesting to me.

You see, that's what headlines are about. Of course they're supposed to be clear. And sometimes ours are rightly criticized because they're not. Or they're criticized because they're too cute. Or, worst of all, because they're wrong.

But they're not supposed to make the news dull. They are supposed to grab you with reasons to read the story. They're what you might talk about over the breakfast table.

We don't produce the paper to make public officials happy.

We produce the paper for you.

And sometimes that means we make people mad.

I think it's worth the price.