The Press: Questions Mark Magazines

The inquiring reporter, once a bright star of U.S. journalism, today is being outglittered by a new performer: the inquiring headline writer. On the theory that no question is too complex for a headline—and no answer too lame for the text—the quiz kid rose swiftly from keyhole-peeping sheets such as Confidential (WHAT WAS PRIME MINISTER NEHRU’S

SNAKE DOING IN THE STARLET’S BED?) to slick women’s magazines such as Ladies’ Home Journal, which inquired recently: ARE WE COMMERCIALIZING SEX? (Conclusion: “Maybe.”) Many other mass-circulation magazines have joined the fad for question mark journalism, and in recent months have popped brain-rattling questions ranging from WAR GETTING CLOSER? (Answer: Few governments “now rule it out”) to HOW WILL THE BIRD FLY?, a report on the stock market that concluded sagely: “There was solid ground for fogbound uncertainty.” In McGraw-Hill’s Business Week, an inquiring headline writer last week achieved a fogbound classic. Asked the head: INFLATION OR DEFLATION? Answered the boldface subhead: “Washington policymakers see the signs pointing both ways. But most economists agree that neither one is inevitable.”