Sunday, August 23, 2009

TRUE BUT STUPID HEADLINES

Sometimes a stupid headline can completely warn you off a story.

The Onion specializes in stupid headlines, such as with this above-the-fold story in today's issue:

onion

Today, in a possibly related story, the Los Angeles Times on-line had this headline:

Junk-food tax seen as way to fight obesity, fund healthcare

Of course this headline is true.  All that is required for this headline to be true is that one person has expressed that view. For instance:

Moon seen as made of blue cheese,

This is about the demented ex-astronaut/moon-lander's campaign to correct the myth about green cheese.

Or

Obamacare seen as socialism,

Or

LA Times editors seen as morons.

Of course, LAY's intent is to assert that a junk food tax might reasonably be expected to fight..., and to fund...

Or, the headline could have read:

Junk-food tax seen as regressive.

Yesterday the New York Times had this headline:

World bankers suggest rebound may have begun

If that headline is true, then the opposite is equally true:

World bankers suggest rebound may not have begun

etc.

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