Headlines matter. Were they migrants, people who happened to be at a migrant center, pedestrians, or manslaughter victims?

Do the headlines encourage empathy, or do they “other” the victims of crime?  (Click to zoom in.)     Similar:How Not to Hate Shakespeare The problem isn’t Shakespeare—it’s h…CultureLiberals and conservatives dislike reading opposing viewsMost research subjects, when offered the…Culture‘Aims’: the software for hire that can control 30,000 fake online profiles At first glance, the…

I assume the police report didn’t specify what kind of underwear, because this headline is crying out for a very obvious pun.

As tempting as the pun might be, it would be bad journalism to refer to this incident as a “brief chase” unless the reporter can verify exactly what kind of attire the suspect was wearing. Verify or Duck. Similar:Happy Easter 2019 Current_EventsA stranger approached me today.A stranger approached me today. I was a…CultureFirst Day in…

What a fluke (great headline; great story)

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The phrase “debate begins” in the headlines of multiple stories on coronavirus does not mean sneaky journalists copy-pasted a press release

If you encounter the same story on different news sites, that does not mean you caught sneaky America-hating fake news “journalists” in the act. A meme I recently encountered shows three slightly different coronavirus headlines, all of which use the phrase “debate begins.” Text shared along with the meme suggests the repetition means the story…

When People Only Read the Headline — Misuse of Journalism

The Society of Professional Journalists links to an interview with an MIT professor who’s studying misinformation on social media (which is not the same thing as bad journalism — some bad actors take journalism out of context in order to deceive). Responsible journalists are aware that sensational headlines can harm the public. The truth is…

A tale of two headlines: CNN and Fox shade their reports of UFC crowd’s reaction to Trump

Headlines from CNN and Fox shade in different directions, but both articles agree in substance that Trump got a mixed reaction from the “Ultimate Fighting Championship” in New York yesterday. The Fox reporter carefully cites the phrasing of other journalists who saw the reaction as mixed, as opposed the CNN reporter who confidently describes the boos overpowering the cheers.

Love This Headline: “He took a date to the park where he was gored by a bison, figuring it wouldn’t happen again. He was wrong.”

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Yellow Journalism Did Not Cause the Spanish-American War (Role of Sensationalized Headlines Often Exaggerated)

When a correspondent sent to Cuba to cover a possible war telegraphed that there would be no war and he wanted to come home, Newspaper mogul Willam Randolph Hearst is said to have replied, “Please remain. You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war.”   It’s a story I remember learning in middle school.  …

My Student Calls Out a Mental Health Stigma in a Biased Headline — But Here’s Why We Shouldn’t Blame “The Media”

This morning a journalism student told me a friend in a different class was complaining that “the media” was stigmatizing mental illness in its coverage of yesterday’s mass shooting in California. My student told me she remembered I had mentioned that reporters often don’t write the headlines under which their stories are published, but she…

A study in breaking news headlines.

For the UK Guardian, the news is the words the White House used while accusing Acosta of an action caught on video. For Fox, Sanders was accused of sharing an allegedly  “‘doctored’” video of a neutrally-identified “interaction.” For the Washington Post, the White House “shares doctored video” — no accusation, no scare quotes.   Read…

Clickbait Tactics Drive the Writing of Headlines on ABC News

I probably should not be surprised, but when I saw this run of several headlines on the ABC News website, I was struck by how deliberately uninformative they are. I added some useful information that could have been in the headline. A print journalist writes a headline for someone who’s already holding the newspaper, so…

xkcd: Headlines

It: nailed. xkcd: Headlines. Similar:This makes a lot of sense.AmusingLet Me Explain Why Miley Cyrus’ VMA Performance Was Our Top Story This MorningBrutally honest satire, from The Onion. …AmusingThe karyotype of Pimelodella cristata (Siluriformes: Heptapteridae) from Central Amazon ba…Some scholarly journals have a more rigo…AcademiaKids Whose Parents Limit Screen Time Do Worse in College, New…

I feel juvenile enough today that this headline made me snicker.

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