As part of the summer cultural program, the Juma Al Majid Center for Culture and Heritage in Dubai held a specialized media workshop on Thursday, July 17, 2025, titled “Types and Standards of Attractive Headlines in Traditional and Modern Media.” The workshop was presented by journalist Rafat Bou Assaf, with the participation of a select group of media professionals.
The workshop aimed to enhance the writing skills of media professionals and focused on the theoretical and practical aspects related to writing headlines.
The lecturer began the workshop by discussing the nature of a headline, defining it as a concise sentence crafted with linguistic precision that summarizes the content of a media article in an engaging and engaging style that captures the attention of the recipient, whether a reader, listener, or viewer. He then reviewed the two sections of the headline: the introductory and the main, explaining the functions and editorial characteristics of each. The workshop also addressed the principles and characteristics of media headlines, emphasizing that the title is the primary key to understanding the content, and that its formulation requires journalistic experience and high linguistic skill. The most prominent functions of a headline include informing, directing, summarizing the material, and motivating the recipient to follow the content. It is also a primary means of conveying the media message.
The lecturer also addressed types of headlines, such as news, report, investigative, and essay titles, explaining that the choice of title depends on the nature of the media material.
The lecturer concluded the workshop by reviewing a set of criteria for writing a good headline, including clarity, accuracy, brevity, the use of the present tense, avoiding ambiguity, and avoiding repetition and redundancy. He emphasized the importance of drafting the headline after the text is completed to ensure its relevance to the content.
The practical part of the workshop included interactive training applications, during which participants had the opportunity to formulate their own newspaper headlines, based on real media texts. Journalist Rafat Bou Assaf oversaw the evaluation of the titles drafted by the participants, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses and offering detailed feedback on how to improve the wording to align with the professional and linguistic standards addressed in the theoretical part of the workshop.
