Annoying Journalism Headlines Bending The Truth

I’ve touched on the subject of the media, and the difficulties knowing what to believe when you read online headlines before.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed this more and more, perhaps because I’m becoming more attuned to the problem. I thought I’d share some examples. Often these non-headlines are simply clickbait presenting an issue that doesn’t exist and misleading. We truly live in strange times.

I clicked on this headline in a news app out of curiosity. I wanted to know why they’d delay the Premium bonds draw. It turns out that premium bond draws don’t run on weekends and this is nothing new. Therefore, not really delayed and just standard premium bond practice. A non story and an example of presenting an issue in a manner that is not really the case. A waste of time and not helpful form of click bait.

I’ve seen other similar recent examples of headlines claiming major high Street retailers are closing down. Yet on reading, they are closing for a bank holiday or an extra day over Christmas for staff. Misleading.

The issue is mainly local national news websites with heavy advertising on their pages. But even more prominent news providers also do the same thing.

This A-ha headline (below) is of course sad but slightly misleading. It was the manager that died and not an actual Aha band member. In this instance as an age mentioned, I suspected it was not an actual band member before reading. No doubt many will have clicked to find out more though. Perhaps “A-ha Manager dies aged 85…” would be more appropriate. The use of “Icon” and “Legend” often used to gain clicks.

Then this next headline about an incident that happened years ago but reported like it was a story recently circulated.

It really does feel like modern journalism just misleads and provides click bait for news sites. Surely journalists can report better than this? And what pressures are perhaps being put on them to achieve clicks? Do you have any examples that you can share?

To close, here is just one more example. A Monty Python legend dies! It was actually the film editor and sound man!