"Rare indeed is the headline-and-dek combo worth noticing, or caring about. In many publications these aren't even written by the same person who wrote the actual blog; at any rate they're many hundreds or thousands of words shorter than the blog itself. Caring about the headline and dek is to some extent like close-reading the movie poster inside the multiplex. Probably it's better to just go inside the theater and watch the movie."
"My eyeballs rotated a full 180 degrees in protest when I first read this, pointing themselves back at the deep dark of their sockets and for long minutes refusing to return to their normal orientation. It's finally time ... to give Johnny Cash ... his due? The man is one of the very most celebrated and admired figures in all of American popular music. This is like saying it's long past time to give Martin Scorsese his due. Tell you what, buddy: Nobody wants to say it, but it is time to admit that Ludwig von Beethoven had bangers."
Headline-and-dek combinations rarely merit intense focus and often differ in authorship from the main piece, making them much shorter and less substantive. Treating headlines as if they carried the article's full weight can be as absurd as close-reading a movie poster instead of watching the film. The particular trope 'It's finally time to…' falsely suggests belated consensus about a widely recognized figure and tends to mask personal taste. Inserting 'for me' exposes such claims as subjective; such formulations are better framed as personal opinion or abandoned rather than presented as overdue revelation.
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