Q: Prior to President Richard Nixon, newspaper headlines used presidential initials (e.g., JFK, LBJ, etc.). Why was the change made?
–G. Reid, Jasper
A: The use of presidential initials, and their later discontinuation, appears to come down to an issue of space in newspapers. Traditionally, newspapers are broken into eight columns per page, and a single newspaper column is broken into units called picas. A typical column is 11 picas wide.
According to “Safire’s Political Dictionary” by William Safire, prior to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, presidents were usually referred to by their last name in newspaper headlines. Occasionally, newspapers would use nicknames or, in the case of Teddy Roosevelt, the initials T.R.
However, long names like Roosevelt take up a lot of room in a newspaper headline (about 8.5 picas for Roosevelt), which is often short on space. When FDR came along, distinguishing between the first President (Teddy) Roosevelt and the second President (Franklin) Roosevelt would require even more precious picas. FDR took up little headline real estate.
Once the initial idea caught on, Harry S. Truman became HST, John F. Kennedy became JFK and Lyndon Baines Johnson became LBJ. President Dwight David Eisenhower’s nickname, “Ike,” was sometimes used in place of his 10-letter last name. Richard Nixon’s last name was short enough that headline writers didn’t feel the need to abbreviate, according to Safire. Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George (H.W.) Bush didn’t often use their middle initials. By then, the initial trend had largely disappeared from headlines.
Fast Copy News Service wrote this column; Keith Still contributed. Do you have a question? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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