More Than A Mom: The Worst News Headline I Ever Wrote

I don’t usually write editorials. But in tribute to Mother’s Day, I’d like to tell you about what led me to author the worst headline I ever wrote.

It happened just last week, when Montclair resident Mikie Sherrill announced she was running against longtime U.S. Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen. Although Sherrill is a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot and an ex-federal prosecutor (in addition to the mother of four school-aged children), I chose to describe her campaign launch with the headline: “New Jersey Mom To Challenge Frelinghuysen For Congress.”

With the help of some eagle-eyed media watchdogs, I soon realized my error and amended the headline. But in the meanwhile, several Patch readers who caught the unedited version – female and male – correctly lambasted the choice as sexist.

• “If Mikie were not a woman, the ‘mom’ reference wouldn't be there,” one reader wrote in an email. “This perpetuates a patriarchy that we are working hard to disassemble and also takes away from the fact that she is a woman and politician… she's just a ‘mom.’”
• “Have you seen Mikie Sherrill's qualifications?” another reader wrote. “Perhaps the headline should have read: Former Federal Prosecutor To Challenge Frelinghuysen for Congress. That would have been less demeaning.”
• “Clearly being a mother is an incredible achievement and I would never take that away from anyone, but it does suggest sexism on your part,” another reader stated. “Do you describe Rodney Frelinghuysen first as a ‘dad’?”

They were all correct, of course. It was a mistake to highlight “mom” as Sherrill's sole attribute in context of her overall qualifications, just as it would be to unnecessarily mention that a candidate is “black” or "Asian" or “Jewish" or "transgender" or "poor."

If it's not relevant to the story, why would you spotlight it?

The topic of gender bias in news reporting is something that many others have written on with detail and passion. But I think that the inherent problem with labeling a political candidate as a “mom” is encapsulated pretty well in the following passage from a 2016 Huffington post blog that discusses women, media bias and the Olympics.

In the article, the authors discuss news headlines that celebrated the Olympians' male peers instead of the winning athletes themselves (being referred to as the "female Michael Phelps" or the "wife of a Bear’s lineman," for example).

“It’s tempting to condemn this dismissal of women’s success as deliberately hostile but the trend actually reflects a deeper, more insidious worldview: the media simply does not take women and our triumphs… as seriously as those of men.”

Of course, Sherrill is “more than a mom,” just the same as any other parent who has raised children (although the leadership skills inherent to raising four kids are impressive in their own right and not to be dismissed as irrelevant).

She flew a helicopter for the Navy, for God's sake. I can't even ride a roller coaster without getting sick.

SO WHY DID YOU PICK ‘MOM’ FOR A HEADLINE?

Here's the split-second reasoning that led to the worst headline I ever wrote:

• Sherrill’s status as a mother with young daughters is emphasized in her inaugural campaign statement
• The former federal prosecutor represents a rare, high-profile female challenger for Rep. Frelinghuysen (while Frelinghuysen has faced plenty of candidates with military service before, how long has it been since he's squared off against a "mom?")
• Having four school-aged children gives a candidate a unique insight into local education issues, something implied when you call them a "mom" or a "dad"
• The moniker of “mom” is a humanizing characteristic, one that people tend to relate to much more than “prosecutor” or “pilot”
• Sherrill announced her candidacy a week before Mother’s Day, and in the ethically-sterile, every-character-counts world of SEO optimization and online news, it made sense to reference the term “mother” in the headline

So when I tried to boil down all the above points into a single, headline-friendly package, here’s what came out… “Mom.”

Hopefully, this will help to explain – but certainly not excuse – my headline selection. For those who saw the original headline on Facebook or Twitter and didn’t click through to the story, I humbly ask that you do so now and read the dek and body of the article to better understand my intent and overall tone.

Click here to read the article.

Sensitivity to gender identity, race, religion and other socio-economic factors is very important to me as a journalist and more importantly, as a human being. It’s something that I strive to respect day-in-day-out when reporting the news, as should the rest of the media.

I dropped the ball on this one. But hopefully, I – and other writers that may find themselves in the same shoes in the future – can learn from my mistake.

– By Eric Kiefer

Send feedback to Eric.Kiefer@patch.com