Editing The New York Times (section)

===Headlines===
Journalists for ''The New York Times'' do not write their own headlines, but rather copy editors who specifically write headlines. The ''Times''{{'}}s guidelines insist headline editors get to the main point of an article but avoid giving away endings, if present. Other guidelines include using slang "sparingly", avoiding [[Tabloid journalism|tabloid headlines]], not ending a line on a preposition, article, or adjective, and chiefly, not to pun. ''[[The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage]]'' states that wordplay, such as "Rubber Industry Bounces Back", is to be tested on a colleague as a [[Canary in a coal mine|canary is to be tested in a coal mine]]; "when no song bursts forth, start rewriting".{{Sfn|Hiltner|2017b}} ''The New York Times'' has amended headlines due to controversy. In 2019, following two back-to-back mass shootings in [[2019 El Paso shooting|El Paso]] and [[2019 Dayton shooting|Dayton]], the ''Times'' used the headline, "Trump Urges Unity vs. Racism", to describe then-president [[Donald Trump]]'s words after the shootings. After criticism from ''[[FiveThirtyEight]]'' founder [[Nate Silver]], the headline was changed to, "Assailing Hate But Not Guns".{{Sfn|Chiu|2019}}

Online, ''The New York Times''{{'}}s headlines do not face the same length restrictions as headlines that appear in print; print headlines must fit within a column, often six words. Additionally, headlines must "break" properly, containing a complete thought on each line without splitting up prepositions and adverbs. Writers may edit a headline to fit an article more aptly if further developments occur. The ''Times'' uses [[A/B testing]] for articles on the front page, placing two headlines against each other. At the end of the test, the headlines that receives more traffic is chosen.{{Sfn|Bulik|2016}} The alteration of a headline regarding intercepted Russian data used in the [[Mueller special counsel investigation]] was noted by Trump in a March 2017 interview with ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'', in which he claimed that the headline used the word "wiretapped" in the print version of the paper on January 20, while the digital article on January 19 omitted the word. The headline was intentionally changed in the print version to use "wiretapped" in order to fit within the print guidelines.{{Sfn|Symonds|2017}}