Baz McAlister shares decade of award-winning and nominated headlines

Baz McAlister’s headline-writing skills have won him a swag of awards and nominations over the past decade. Check them out.

Constantly racing thoughts, a jumbled brain full of pop culture minutiae, and a penchant for twisted puns and dark humour – those are the qualities that I credit with winning me the all-Queensland gong for headline writing five times, and keeping me in work as a production editor at The Courier-Mail and Sunday Mail.

Mine is a brain that’s as strange and chaotic as it is playful and creative, but living in it is the trade-off for a pool room filled with little black plaques from prestigious Clarion Awards (and even one Walkley Award, when I got lucky at the nationals in 2019).

My fifth win marks 10 finalist nominations for the award in the past 11 years. (Something awful clearly happened to me in 2017.)

Each year, Queensland journalists are asked to enter their three top headlines from the past year in the hotly contested “three headings” category of the Clarions, so my body of work represents a series of snapshots of what was happening in Queensland and around the world during the past decade.
So please join me as I look back on my 30 award-nominated headlines that both told and sold the stories that inspired them.

Baz McAlister accepts his Clarion award from Channel 10’s Georgina Lewis in 2019.

2022: WINNER

The cashed and the fuhrious: Triumph of the wheel

When Clive Palmer was allegedly looking to add Adolf Hitler’s Mercedes-Benz to his expansive car collection, I went full-on with the puns, including references to two movies, and an entirely new word. Any headline where you get to make up a new word is a treat, and boy, did I enjoy whacking an umlaut in there too.

Mostafa screw loose

Accused drug kingpin Mostafa Baluch’s plan to flee Australia to Romania was doomed when the first phase involved crossing into Queensland from NSW during some of the toughest border controls in the world (due to Covid). I took the cue to poke a bit of fun at his daft attempt to sneak into Fortress Queensland.

It’s the peak of stupidity

When Australia Post released a stamp commemorating Wollumbin Mount Warning, but failed to put the correct mountain on the stamp, it was a good opportunity to have a little fun at the national postal service’s expense.

2021: FINALIST

Nat King Coal

On the day Barnaby Joyce was sworn in after his shock re-anointing as King of the Nats, Coal was the first thing on his agenda. My brain managed to put those three keywords together in homage to the vintage American crooner Nat King Cole.

Pisasale-lujah

The colourful antics of fallen Ipswich Mayor Paul Pisasale were always good for a headline as his story of extortion, perjury, fraud, corruption, and sexual assault unfolded. But when he ‘found God’ in jail in his own personal Road to Damascus moment, I found a bold pun that works really well with the pronunciation of his surname. I love playing with people’s names in a headline.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmasks

When Queensland’s Chief Health Officer flagged that we’d have to get used to the idea of wearing masks through the Christmas season, a headline based on this jaunty 1950s festive hit sprung to mind. I especially love writing headlines that play with well-known earworm songs because they become doubly memorable.

2020: WINNER

Apoocalypse now

The great toilet paper shortage of 2020 felt like a properly devastating crisis. I headlined this story with a cheeky play on the title of a 1979 film about a dark journey into insanity. Which seemed to entirely capture the zeitgeist of the COVID era, to be honest.

The Windsor of our discontent

When the Megxit story broke I deployed this right royal reference to the most famous (and first) line of Shakespeare’s Richard III. Prince Harry was certainly publicly expressing his discontentment at being a scion of the Windsor line with his desire to step back.

You shook ‘em all night, Elon

The story about Johnny Depp accusing his then-wife Amber Heard of cheating on him in a threesome with – of all people – Elon Musk and Cara Delevingne was one of the most bizarre stories I was assigned this year, and I immediately knew I would have some fun with it. I spent a lot of time finding a headline that matched the bizarre celeb pomp of the story, and a tiny tweak to a couple of letters in a bombastic, cocksure AC/DC lyric seemed the perfect way to go.

2019: WINNER

(These three headlines also won the national Walkley Award)

Time to haul ass

The moment I was assigned the page about the donkey who had to be winched out of the septic tank, I had the headline, and it stuck.

Give ’em a finch and they’ll take a mine

For this story about the Adani mine approval, I knew I needed a headline that worked to sell the angle that the state government was perhaps unduly flexing its muscles by attempting to tie up the project for up to five years with environmental approvals regarding the now-infamous black-throated finch.

Halal… is it meals you’re sooking for

A silly prison fight between two bad eggs over an objectively ridiculous incident regarding a halal meal, in which one kicked a door and the other threw his dinner on the floor… it’s all sooky schoolyard stuff, and I felt a light touch was the way to go, with this wordplay on the Lionel Richie classic.

2018: WINNER

Bold McDonald has no charm

The story about sacked Seven News anchor Bill McDonald supposedly leaving a little irreverent graffiti present for his former workmates needed a light touch.

Debbie does dalliances

I used a play on kitsch classic raunchy film Debbie Does Dallas for this yarn about a boom in bubs nine months after Cyclone Debbie turned the lights out up north. Plus it allowed me to use the lovely word ‘dalliance’ to describe the frisky hook-ups.

Throw in the towels … and fetch the hot water

The strong angle on this Jeff Horn fight story made it fun to work on – not a straight-up boxing yarn, it revolved around whether the tension of the fight might trigger his pregnant wife Jo Horn’s impending labour. I played on the old “fetch the towels and hot water” cliché around emergency baby deliveries, along with the “throw in the towel” boxing parlance.

2016: FINALIST

Threat level: Hilux

Riffing on the most popular model of ute, this headline about a mad assertion that Aussie utes were being stolen and funnelled overseas for use in ISIS war convoys was written in just minutes in a tight space as an emergency replacement. My original headline, “Jihad Theft Auto” was deemed so good that it was torn away from me by editor Chris Dore to be used as the page one splash.

Ready, Jedi, dough

As a rabid Star Wars fan, I tried to make sure the lead-up to the December 2015 release of The Force Awakens was well-represented in the paper. This story hung on the crazy amounts of money the film was projected to make and the headline came to me immediately. It’s short, sharp, fun, and accessible and gets across the sense of fan anticipation that was building.

Liar Belle for prosecution

It was a real pleasure to be able to rip into cancer con artist Belle Gibson. Once I’d realised from the yarn that she was “liable for prosecution”, this headline just fortuitously fell into place.

2015: FINALIST

The keys to the Palasz

Annastacia Palaszczuk’s ascension to Premier of Queensland marked an end to our marathon Courier-Mail state election coverage (and the ensuing days of limbo). It was such an intense run that we didn’t even think of the light at the end of the tunnel until we were there – so we didn’t really brainstorm any final headlines beforehand, this one just came to me on the night.

The pavs and the pav-nots

This was a lighthearted story out of the Brisbane G20 summit contrasting what the world leaders would be eating for dessert (scrumptious pavlova) compared to the protesters in the streets – the haves and the have-nots.

Jihadi boy mystery

This headline was for a story about the father of “Jihadi Jake”, who reportedly blew himself up in a suicide mission for ISIS. The father said he blamed himself for the mysterious and “perplexing” radicalisation of his son, who was raised in an atheist family.

2014: FINALIST

So, Chumpy, you couldn’t carve it

A riff on the tagline from the old Chum dog food commercial served perfectly to chronicle Alex Pullin’s elimination in the Snowboard Cross at Sochi. I’m aware we got some “for shame” and “how dare you” letters about this one.

Don’t you worry about politics, stick to Joh-gurt

Borrowing a quote from Sir Joh seemed the way to go for this story about his grandson Sam’s choice to shun politics and go into the frozen yoghurt business.

Carpe per diem

“Seize the per diem” is a fitting catchcry for this yarn about Campbell Newman giving his travelling ministers carte blanche to spend $167 on meals without having to produce receipts.

2013: FINALIST

Voice star’s ex factor

This story about Luke Kennedy walking out on his ‘ex’ required a trashy, bold, gossip-mag headline and I found one that combines The Voice with a play on the name of that other TV talent show.

Thunderbolt for Lightfoot

Anyone who remembers the 1974 Clint Eastwood crim caper will get a kick out of this headline – but even for those who don’t have a clue that film exists, it still works as fashion designer Daniel Lightfoot expresses shock at his betrayal by a trusted employee.

Rank stripped? It’s affair cop

There was a lot going on in this story of a Gold Coast copper found guilty of having an affair with a subordinate, then appealing, then accepting his punishment.

2012: WINNER

Too haute to handle

For a feature about the downturn in Brisbane’s high-end dining scene, this play on words brings to mind images of diners turning their backs on haute cuisine.

Blinky on the brink

The Queensland koala population was facing extinction in a matter of years, and this headline had to set out exactly what is at stake and, if possible, provoke an emotional response. The reference to Blinky Bill conjures up a cute image for readers, and to think of him on the brink of extinction says it all.

Celeb stylist Sassoon’s sad parting

Stories about Vidal Sassoon’s death were crying out for a ‘hair today, gone tomorrow’ style pun. My “sad parting” effort was bold, a bit irreverent, but I hope still on the right side of respectful.