Three headlines

Maybe RNZ has a CMS with a short headline character limit and subeditors under time pressure. 

Or maybe this is RNZ doing its usual RNZ thing. 

Compare the three headlines on this excellent piece by Prof Norman Gemmell, former Chief Economist at Treasury, on the tax mess that Labour announced on housing. 

When he wrote it for The Conversation, the headline was "New Zealand's new housing policy is really just a new tax package - and it's a shambles".

Now I don't know if Norman wrote the headline - sometimes the outlets do that. But that was the original. 

When The Herald syndicated it, they changed the headline a little. For The Herald, it was "New Zealand's new housing policy is really just a new tax package - and it's a mess". This version's gated. 

Mess is a bit shorter than shambles, but they're about the same thing. Or close enough.

Here's what Radio New Zealand did with it. "Opinion: New Zealand's new housing policy is really just a new tax package". 

The article is worth reading. I suppose we should be grateful that Radio NZ gave it any space at all.