Remember filling in the bubbles on those standardized tests? We were sternly abjured to “choose only one answer”, the implication being that while a personal perspective or unique knowledge might render more than one answer plausible, only one was most correct.
The San Diego Tribune carried this AP wire headline today:
’07 deadliest year for U.S. troops in Iraq since invasion
While the USA Today carried this one:
U.S. combat fatalities in Iraq ebb for 7th straight month
Both statements are true, and to be fair, both stories paint the broader picture in the text that follows. But headlines are important in that they frame the reader’s perspective on the story he’s about to read. So given those headlines it seems to me – for now, at least – that only the latter is correct.
Seems to me that your San Diego Tribune offers ABSOLUTE proof that BAD news sells.
I understand that the headline writers, not the same people who write the stories, try to be clever and gain attention for each particular story. Your example/comparison demonstrates the writer’s effort to motivate one to read this story from a negative angle, a “let me hear the bad side” approach.
Headlines are many times the only part of a story that is read at all. Witness the establishment of a “Headline News Network” on televison. Headline writers “have fun” trying to turn a phrase; sometimes with a motive.
INN
Insurgent news network.
As they say, the first casualty in war is truth. Leave it to the Libs in the press to out-goebbel Goebbels.
Well said Geo.