[ggm]

It is true they were notorious. Sufficiently so for it to be the standing joke of their name in Private Eye. It is also true that probably, some of the time, it was in-crowd joking.

I have a deep antipathy to Murdoch press, having said that they used to have remarkably high editorial standards in the Australian flagship newspaper (called "The Australian") and when News Ltd went on a cost cutting drive, around the time of the collapse of their main competitor, Fairfax Ltd (caused by Warwick fairfax, who basically wrecked the empire: he now consults in the USA on .. how to be a successful entrepreneur!) It merged a huge amount of sub-editor functions into a JV with Fairfax, which subsequently basically failed in-place: They sacked the good staff, and kept an out-source agency which had no clue. The Oz, is now pretty U/S for basic grammar AND spelling.

They also routinely now do pun leads. This was funny for about half a second, ever. The Graun also does far too many pun leads. I think all newspapers wind up there.

A good fictional account of news headlines and the journalistic pressures of newspaper writing in happier days is in "leaven of malice" by Robertson Davies: a fictional Canadian newspaper, beset by a cruel trick played in "hatches, matches and dispatches" -"The Shipping News" has its moments too.