Another Story Altogether

For the most part, the story’s always the same.  The headlines, however, are another story.

The story in question, in a nutshell, is this:

Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, who sold his delivery empire in 1998 for an estimated $1 billion, is building the town of Ave Maria about 25 miles east of Naples, Florida.  The town will include the campus of Ave Maria University, the first Catholic university built in the United States in about 40 years.

And if all that weren’t noteworthy enough, the story reports that Monaghan, who recently told Newsweek, “I believe all of history is just one big battle between good and evil. I don't want to be on the sidelines,” plans for the town to live under strict Catholic rule -- meaning no abortions, no birth control, and no porn.

Predictably, this plan has some people ready for a fight -- the Florida branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has vowed “a whole lot of litigation,” Planned Parenthood has expressed concern, and Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice (to listen to their ‘Good Catholics Use Condoms’ podcast -- and no, I am not making that up -- click here, said, “This is un-American,” and likened the concept to Islamic fundamentalism.

Maybe I’m just being naïve, but I don’t see how the existence of this town threatens my civil liberties -- it mostly sounds like a smaller version of Utah, only without the polygamy.

No matter where this story goes, so far it’s been a headline-writer’s dream.

Do a Google News search on “Ave Maria pizza,” and you’ll get well over 300 entries returned.  In most of the publications, the story is reprinted directly from the Associated Press wire story; sometimes writer Brian Skoloff is credited, sometimes not.

But while the AP story comes with a suggested headline, space limitations in actual newspapers mean that headline writers either have more room to fill, or have to cut what they’re given.  And that’s when things get interesting.

Some of the headline writers focused on the Catholic aspect of Ave Maria: “Catholic rules to govern town,” read the Raleigh, North Carolina, News & Observer; the Hartford Courant went with “Catholic town Planned in Florida”; “Catholic town, Catholic law,” was the headline in The Buffalo News, while The Gainesville Sun simply went with, “Catholic city in works.”

Others added a pizza-specific twist to their headlines, perhaps thinking that angle might further entice readers. “Pizza Town Strictly Catholic,” said Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service; “Pizza magnate seeks Catholic-governed town,” was popular, picked up by numerous papers, including the Seattle Post-Intelligencer; the website for The Hawaii Channel went with, “Domino’s Pizza Boss Plans Catholic-Only Town.”

Some took this theme a bit further -- and cleverer. “‘Pizza Pope’ Plans Catholic Town,” proclaimed NewsMax.com; the UK’s Guardian Unlimited also went with the papal theme, with “The pizza pope’s utopia”; “Pizza tycoon in plan to deliver sin-free town,” said The Scotsman; while the Irish Examiner declared, “Pizza king set to build own city,” which kind of makes it sound like they’re planning some sort of deep-dish version of Candyland.

Other writers focused on the specific sins that would be prohibited in Ave Maria:  the San Diego Union-Tribute covered them all with “New Florida town looks to ban abortions, pornography and contraceptives”; the Houston Chronicle focused on the abortions with “New Florida Town Looks to Ban Abortions”; the Chicago Sun-Times emphasized the contraceptives with “New Catholic town may keep birth control out”; while WABC-DT in New York (“Domino’s pizza founder wants to create porn-free town” and the UK’s The Mirror (“Porn-free town plan”) zeroed in on the thing most likely to get this column caught in your spam filter.

Meanwhile, VUE Weekly, “Edmonton’s 100% Independent News & Entertainment Weekly,” dispensed with the pleasantries and got straight to the point:

“New Town Outlaws Fun.”

(Speaking of fun, we pause now for some grammatical fun -- WWMT, Western Michigan’s CBS affiliate, went with “Domino’s founder wants porn, abortion-free town,” while Arkansas’ The Hometown Channel was one of dozens of news outlets whose headlines blared, “New Florida Town Plans Abortion, Porn, Birth Control Bans.”  Now, I know what they meant.  But if you’re quickly browsing headlines, it seems like it would be pretty easy to just read the first part of either sentence -- “Domino’s founder wants porn” or “New Florida Town Plans Abortion” -- and get a completely different understanding of the story.  This, friends, is why commas matter.  And now, back to our show.)

Other creative headlines abounded:  “On a mission from God,” read the Toronto Star; the South Coast Times (Mass.) called it, “A slice of Rome in Florida”; the Orlando Sentinel went litigious with “Ave Maria’s rules could fuel lawsuits”; while the Lone Star Times posed an intriguing question: 

“What if it’s Friday and I want pepperoni on my pizza?”

It’s been a long time since I had to make up headlines for other people’s stories, but I can just imagine the joy felt by headline writers across the land when this story came across the wires.

And while it’s hard to gauge the exact impact of the work these intrepid headline writers do, I can tell you this:  Friday morning, on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Monaghan backed off on some of his comments. “There’s a lot of misconceptions about this. I don’t really have a vision for the town. I have a vision for the university.”

The Washington Post headline for that story read, “Pizza Magnate Modifies Plans for Fla. Town.”

The article did not specifically mention whether or not he still wanted porn.