This is not a subhead

Here a subhead, there a subhead, everywhere a subhead. If you read magazines and newspapers -- or even some nonfiction books and websites -- you may have noted the exponential proliferation of the "pesky and thoroughly unsexy little copy-breakers" that editors call subheads. (I used to work for an editor who called them "slugs," an old typesetting term that may have indicated how they were originally viewed.)

Head Count (this is a subhead)

It's all part of the dumbing down of reading, says writer Jim Walsh in his article "Commence Skimming" -- i.e., a straining to make it more like television. "For inspiration, sometimes I go to the archives at the library to look at old newspapers," he writes. "No subheads. No splashy graphics. No color. No fancy fonts for headlines. Just words. Gray. Dull. Fabulous. Words."

The dirty little secret of the magazine world, I was once told, is that many (maybe most) "readers" don't read articles at all. They glance at the headline, look at the pictures and graphics, and read (at most) the captions and subheads. People don't have time to actually sit down and read anymore, all the page designers say. We're in big trouble if that's true, I say.