New York Times pokes fun at itself in classy obit of rival paper's storied headline writer

Vinny Musetto, who created one of the greatest headlines ever, died on Tuesday

(Image credit: Twitter)

last updated 10 June 2015

The editors who write headlines for newspapers "generally toil in anonymity," says Margalit Fox at The New York Times, and they rarely get obituaries in the Paper of Record. But Vincent Musetto, a former editor at the New York Post who died on Tuesday of pancreatic cancer at age 74, earned his New York Times obit with a Post headline from April 15, 1983:

Musetto's headline about the grisly killing at a Queens strip club is legendary in New York journalism circles and outside them as well. But it wasn't his favorite; Musetto said he was most pleased with a 1984 headline, "GRANNY EXECUTED IN HER PINK PAJAMAS." Fox, at The New York Times, noted that Musetto's "topless body" headline was "exquisitely emblematic of the Post under Rupert Murdoch," then took a stab at lightly parodying her own paper's highbrow conventions:

But what endured in public memory far longer than the crime was the headline, with its verbless audacity, arresting parallel adjectives, and forceful trochaic slams. (The corresponding headline in The New York Times that day proclaimed, genteelly, "Owner of a Bar Shot to Death; Suspect Is Held." Headlessness was not mentioned until the third paragraph; toplessness not at all.) [New York Times]

And in fact, questions about whether the bar was actually topless almost deprived the world of Musetto's famous headline. As his Post colleague Charlie Carillo recounted in 2012, when the city editor threatened to yank the headline because the bar may not have topless dancers — it did; the Post had a reporter check — Musetto jumped up on his desk and yelled "It's gotta be a topless bar! This is the greatest f--ing headline of my career!" And it was.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.