poor headline writing and/or journalism

[cthomer5000]

1. I realize often headlines are not written by the journalist who wrote the article.

2. Regardless, I have reasonably high expectations for CNN. Let's work under the assumption that headlines should make some basic sense.


Now let's take a look at one of their big headlines and most emailed articles of the last few days: Brazilian amputee model dead at 20 - CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/24/brazil.amputee.model/index.html)

Headline: Brazilian amputee model dead at 20

My first thought was 'An amputee model i've never heard of is now dead, that's sad'

Then i read the article... I didn't need to go very far... here's the first sentence:

Brazilian model Mariana Bridi da Costa, whose hands and feet were amputated in a bid to save her from a deadly and little-known illness, died early Saturday, two friends of the model told CNN.

So literally one sentence in, the headline is revealed to be either completely incorrect or extremely disingenous. She was a model, whose limbs were then amputated in an attempt to save her life. Not an amputee model who then went on to die.

It would be just about as accurate a headline to say 'Decased Brazillian Model dead at 20.' After all she is a model and is now dead, so perhaps we can simply push her as one of Brazil's top dead models. Why should a headline make any sense at all?

It seems like 50% of articles I see these days just make little to no fucking sense when you actually read in detail.

[Karlifornia]

Sometimes I'm just stumped by what gets past editors.

[panerd]

1. I realize often headlines are not written by the journalist who wrote the article.

2. Regardless, I have reasonably high expectations for CNN. Let's work under the assumption that headlines should make some basic sense.


Now let's take a look at one of their big headlines and most emailed articles of the last few days: Brazilian amputee model dead at 20 - CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/24/brazil.amputee.model/index.html)


My first thought was 'An amputee model i've never heard of is now dead, that's sad'

Then i read the article... I didn't need to go very far... here's the first sentence:



So literally one sentence in, the headline is revealed to be either completely incorrect or extremely disingenous. She was a model, whose limbs were then amputated in an attempt to save her life. Not an amputee model who then went on to die.

It would be just about as accurate a headline to say 'Decased Brazillian Model dead at 20.' After all she is a model and is now dead, so perhaps we can simply push her as one of Brazil's top dead models. Why should a headline make any sense at all?

It seems like 50% of articles I see these days just make little to no fucking sense when you actually read in detail.


CNN is in the business of trying to make the news entertaining. Which are people more likely to read? 'Brazilian amputee model dead at 20' or 'Deceased Brazillian Model dead at 20'? Obviously the first one, the one that you chose to read as well. Don't think they are really about journalistic integrity at that station. Larry King is one of their main stars.

[Shkspr]

I think there is an editorial problem at work in cases like the one you cited, but I think it's actually a somewhat different one.

CNN, and other news websites, are really pushing the practice of owning stories. That is, of finding some person out there that something out of the ordinary has happened to, and just reporting the hell out of that person's every move. The most egregious recent example I can think of on CNN.com was the Iraqi kid that got severely injured and had to have major reconstructive surgery. Youssif, I think his name was. God, I hated how every single night CNN would bump whatever important thing happened in the world that day to a sidebar while the headline screamed "Youssif smiles" or something like that.

Anyway...

So what happened with Da Costa was that once the hospitalization for a UTI had resulted in the horrifying limb amputations, they just kept reporting it. Every new procedure, or comment from the doctors, or test that was run prompted a rewritten article...and a rewritten headline. By the time she finally lost her battle, the editors and webmasters at CNN.com had lived this story for days. Those of us that for better or for worse had followed CNN.com for several news cycles knew exactly what was meant by the phrase "amputee model" and could keep track of developments in the case without having to refresh the article over and over for the next paragraph they stuck at the top of the page.

The big problem the editors had, and why the headline comes off as misleading, is that nobody at CNN.com, once the story was over and reported, realizes that there was a class of readers that HADN'T been following the story every couple of hours over the weekend. So the final twitterish headline stands.

[Neon_Chaos]

I actually had been following this story, so the title wasn't misleading at all.

She was amputated a couple of days ago, and then died.

[mckerney]

I actually had been following this story, so the title wasn't misleading at all.

She was amputated a couple of days ago, and then died.

Still, "amputee model" gives me the idea she had made a career out of modeling her stumps.

[sterlingice]

It would be just about as accurate a headline to say 'Decased Brazillian Model dead at 20.' After all she is a model and is now dead, so perhaps we can simply push her as one of Brazil's top dead models. Why should a headline make any sense at all?

I'm with the general idea of your post, but what's a "Decased" person? ;) And, really, if she were dead, you wouldn't need the descriptor "deceased" as it would be redundant- you could just go with "Brazillian Model dead at 20".

SI

[cthomer5000]

I'm with the general idea of your post, but what's a "Decased" person? ;) And, really, if she were dead, you wouldn't need the descriptor "deceased" as it would be redundant- you could just go with "Brazillian Model dead at 20".

SI


It would be incredibly redundant, but no less accurate than 'amputee model.'

[MJ4H]

How about this headline

http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/whitepowerssouth2.png

[gstelmack]

CNN's headlines, especially on "Headline News", have gone downhill forever. Keep in mind that you can click the little T-Shirt icon next to the headline on the front page to order a T-Shirt with the headline displayed on it, so they are actually making additional money off the headlines, which gives them an incentive to make pithy headlines that sell T-Shirts, rather than headlines relevant to the story.

Or in other words, the media in this country sucks.