Not exactly as advertised
As a self-confessed media weasel (my affectionate, hopefully mildly funny term for me and my ilk!), I’ll admit to not being even a little bit objective about what goes on with other media. I’ve worked in them all and I’ve seen behind the curtain, so to speak.
But I am extremely irked by misleading headlines! We create headlines here at 680News, of course, but I try my very best not to inflame what I write in a bid to be more flashy or interesting - unless I do it in a cartoonish manner over a humourous story. The news is what it is, in my opinion, and it doesn’t need a revision of the facts to make it sound sexier or more dramatic. That’s my view.
So it makes me a little bit buggy when I read a newspaper headline that ends up having little or nothing to do with the actual story. It happens quite regularly! And this past weekend it happened in a New York paper concerning the death of actor Heath Ledger.
“THE BODY WAS STILL WARM,” it screamed out. This particular tabloid style paper is making Ledger’s death the pantleg on which it has trained its attack dog teeth. Police have decided not to question Mary-Kate Olsen, who got the first few calls from Ledger’s panicked masseuse after she found his body, but this paper is skewering the young actress for not making a statement about it.
On Sunday, the “warm” headline was meant to give the impression that Ledger may have died later than first reported, meaning that a call to 911 instead of a flurry of calls to Olsen, might have resulted in paramedics arriving earlier and saving the 28-year-old’s life. But if you actually read the story, which I did, you find that the “warm” comment came in the midst of several other sentences written down by attending paramedics, that make it clear the actor had already been dead for some time and was beyond reviving. There was no question about that. The headline was taken from an insignificant line that had said, “torso warm to touch.”
A promising and talented young actor is dead. I enjoyed his work and his name on the credit list was enough to convince me to watch a movie. But toxicology results are still pending. Prescription drugs were found near him. No one suspects murder so it’s not as if some crazed killer is on the loose. There is just no need to try to boost this already tragic story, planting hype where no hype should be. I like to get my information as directly and honestly as possible and I like to give it the same way.
January 31st, 2008 at 9:41 am
Lisa’s outrage is so refreshing! It’s great to learn that some who are active in the media also condemn the sleaze of their own profession ~ and there is lots. I hope Lisa never runs into a situation where she needs to choose between following orders and remaining true to her ideals, since we as her audience both need and deserve her.
February 1st, 2008 at 4:04 pm
I sympathize with your frustration Lisa, but as a former community newspaper reporter (many, many years ago) I’ve realized that, when you’re reading– or listening — to the news you’ve got to know the source.
It bugs me a bit when people get upset by the way the same story is played so much differently in the Sun, Globe, Star, or any of those wonderfully rich (in both imagination and dollars!!) tabloid newspapers.
As educated consumers they need to be aware that the “packaging” or presentation of ANY story is really a function of the publication’s overall packaging.
And so, Lisa, you were reading a tab. What on earth could you expect?
February 4th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
So refreshing to hear that before we hear the news the source and reliability of the facts has been substantiated. Your comments re putting your self in the listeners ear to the story makes sense is a common courtesy that seems to have been forgotten by a great number of journalists and reporters. Let me explain. How many times do you hear the news item begin with a pronoun, 0 it, he or she was/did this or that. The listener is supposed to know immediately who the reporter/jounalist is talking about. This is not only annoying it is very bad grammar. Please have some of your script writers go back and learn the use of the English language and begin a sentence with words that leave no misunderstanding about the story. EG Use people’s name’s up front and then use the pronoun, not the other way round. The news seems to be about creating too much sensation rather then reporting the facts.
February 7th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
I’m talking only about the headline being innacurate, not the political slant of the story. To be fair, The Post offers just once example. I’ve seen the same kind of thing in every paper over the years! And one of my “favourites” appeared in the Star’s online edition just this week. It wasn’t innacurate, just classless: The Big Dump Continues!