The paper linked in the article is titled "CRISPR-Cas9 In Vivo Gene Editing for Transthyretin Amyloidosis." That's close enough to your proposed title. If what you're looking for is a technical research paper meant for people intimately familiar with the field, then that's a great title.

But it's a terrible title for an article meant for laypeople like us. The words "transthyretin amyloidosis" are utterly meaningless to me and most HN/NPR readers, but "He Inherited A Devastating Disease" tells me what kind of disease it is (devastating, heritable) and why CRISPR gene editing might be a big deal.

It also helps clue me into the contents of the article. Because it is as much a summary of a key research result, as it is a profile of Patrick Doherty, a man affected by the disease. That's entirely missing from your title.

None of this is new. "Write for your audience" is as old as writing itself.

> What's wrong with "CRISPR gene editing shown to cure Transthyretin amyloidosis in patient study"

I understand your asking a rhetorical question but in the interest of having a discussion about this I’ll try to give you an answer. Imagine a title like “Xonuicfixs shown in zenocttkike to cure Xclatngt”

Reading that you might thing “wrf are they talking about?” But imagine I just change the title to be more like:

“A breakthrough in Xonuicfixs shows promise as a cure for a range of decided.”

Have I lowered the information content of the title? Yes, certainly. However I have also made it very apparent to you an others who don’t know the subject matter why this is a worthwhile achievement, and this might therefore just become the first article that you read and learn about Xonuicfixs.

And really shouldn’t that be the job of a title? To convey to potential readers why the content might be with their time. And I would note that this is entirely different from clickbait which tires to lure you into content with no information about what the content is.

I know what you mean. These headlines read less like titles and more like lyrics in a song ("He was a skater boy. She said see you later boy."). It feels a bit condescending, as if it was aiming at children. I'd much prefer a title with a "person with thing does action" style.

In my opinion, and it seems in the NPR editor’s opinion, the most exciting angle to this story isn’t the cure of one relatively rare disease (TAA), but rather the seemingly imminent cure of many/most inherited diseases which affect cells of the liver. Indeed, we can even make edits that confer protective benefits to people at risk for diseases due to mutations OR lifestyle (see a similar approach by Verve Therapeutics). This is a big story which deserves the attention grabbing headline.

I believe the metaphore of the inverted pyramid used in journalism plays a part here.

edit: Strike that, hadn't realized that the article title and the HN link differed so much.

I think it’s just an oddity of newspapers. Even before it was called “going viral”, they’ve been a bit like that.

NPR isn’t a research paper, or a researcher focused website.