Call it reverse shoulder or reverse kicker, but it is powerful

The reverse shoulder amplifies the main news point and is used as an extra headline hook to catch the attention of the newspaper reader.

It is called reverse shoulder in some Indian newspapers and reverse kicker in some others. Some Indian editors also call it a strapline.

But its importance cannot be underestimated. The reverse shoulder is one of the most powerful headline props available to newspaper editors. It is used in almost all Indian newspapers to enlarge or amplify the main news point.

The following are the main characteristics of reverse shoulder:

• It is run beneath the main headline
• It is typeset in a point size that is smaller than the main headline
• Its width, that is the number of columns it straddles, is the same as that of the main headline
• It is sometimes set in reverse, a typesetting where the background is black and the letters are white; today colour screen is also used for reverse shoulder.

The biggest advantage of the reverse shoulder is that it gives the headline writer extra space to highlight news points that cannot be covered in the main headline.

In the following train accident story, the headline writer rightly focuses on casualties. The deaths caused by the accident should be the main headline. However, the readers would also like to know the name of the train that was involved in the accident and the place where the accident happened. This information is given in the reverse shoulder

Sometimes, the reverse shoulder is placed over the first column of a multi-column headline. Here too it serves the same purpose. In the following headline, the main headline informs that there are 60 bills pending in Rajya Sabha. The reverse shoulder adds to the information by telling the readers that the government would also be looking into 68 bills that lapsed.