"Headlines" is a segment that airs weekly on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jay Leno that initially aired from May 25, 1992 to May 29, 2009, and resumed production on March 1, 2010. The fourth incarnation of the Tonight Show franchise made its debut on May 25, 1992, three days following Johnny...

. It also aired on the prime-time spin-off The Jay Leno Show

The Jay Leno Show

The Jay Leno Show is an American comedy show created by and starring Jay Leno, that aired from September 14, 2009 to February 9, 2010 on NBC following the May 29, 2009 conclusion of Leno's first tenure as host of The Tonight Show...

. The segment usually airs on Monday, though it airs on Tuesday usually after some popular weekend event pre-empted it for Monday night. It was first seen in 1987, when Jay Leno was still a guest host on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under the Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992. It originally aired during late-night....

. Viewers submit newspaper headline

Headline

The headline is the text at the top of a newspaper article, indicating the nature of the article below it.It is sometimes termed a news hed, a deliberate misspelling that dates from production flow during hot type days, to notify the composing room that a written note from an editor concerned a...

s from all over the world, and the headlines usually contain a misspelled word or badly structured sentences that comically (and often in an unintentionally risqué way) completely change the meaning of what the writer is trying to say.

Influence

Since the early 1980s, David Letterman

David Letterman

David Michael Letterman is an American television host and comedian. He hosts the late night television talk show, Late Show with David Letterman, broadcast on CBS. Letterman has been a fixture on late night television since the 1982 debut of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC...

 has been doing a similar segment called "Small Town News" (albeit on and off) on Late Night with David Letterman

Late Night with David Letterman

Late Night with David Letterman is a nightly hour-long comedy talk show on NBC that was created and hosted by David Letterman. It premiered in 1982 as the first incarnation of the Late Night franchise and went off the air in 1993, after Letterman left NBC and moved to Late Show on CBS. Late Night...

and Late Show with David Letterman

Late Show with David Letterman

Late Show with David Letterman is a U.S. late-night talk show hosted by David Letterman on CBS. The show debuted on August 30, 1993, and is produced by Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants Incorporated. The show's music director and band-leader of the house band, the CBS Orchestra, is...

. Conan O'Brien

Conan O'Brien

Conan Christopher O'Brien is an American television host, comedian, writer, producer and performer. Since November 2010 he has hosted Conan, a late-night talk show that airs on the American cable television station TBS....

 parodied "Headlines" on Late Night with Conan O'Brien

Late Night with Conan O'Brien

Late Night with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien that aired 2,725 episodes on NBC between 1993 and 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musical and comedy performances. Late Night aired weeknights at 12:37 am...

 in a segment called Actual Items

Sketches from Late Night with Conan O'Brien

The following is a list of sketches which debuted on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on NBC.-Moral Outrage:In response to a recent news story, usually about misconduct, Conan speaks at length about his moral outrage, and his feeling of responsibility to remove this type of behavior from society;...

, which uses advertisements purposefully doctored by the show's prop and writing staffs.

On December 18, 2006, both Letterman and Leno included in their segments an item in The Dallas Morning News

The Dallas Morning News

The Dallas Morning News is the major daily newspaper serving the Dallas, Texas area, with a circulation of 264,459 subscribers, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported in September 2010...

 about Letterman, which included a photograph of Leno.

In January 2010 during the replacement of O'Brien as Tonight Show host, Letterman ran a fake promo (featuring former Tonight announcer Edd Hall

Edd Hall

Edd Hall is an American celebrity, television personality, and announcer. Most famous for his work on television as Jay Leno's announcer on The Tonight Show from 1992 to 2004, Hall replaced famed Tonight Show announcer Ed McMahon after Johnny Carson's retirement...

) for the return of Leno to The Tonight Show, referring to "Headlines" as "the bit [Leno] stole from Letterman's late-night show".

Publications

Leno released several compilations of Headlines during the late 1980s and early 1990s:

• Headlines: Real but Ridiculous Headlines from America's Newspapers
• More Headlines
• Headlines III: Not The Movie, Still The Book
• Headlines IV: The Next Generation
• Jay Leno's Police Blotter: Real-Life Crime Headlines

Wil B. Strange includes "personal ads from the book 'Jay Leno's Headlines'" in an issue of Campus Life.