CNN.com and bad article titles

[Philondra]

Whoever writes the shortened article titles for CNN.com really needs to get someone to double check to make sure that it actually matches up with what the article is saying. Here's the story in question:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/06/25/co ... index.html

Here is the long article title, which is appropriate:

Video of church's 'casting out' gay 'demon' in teen sparks anger

OK, there is a video of a church performing an excorcism to rid a teen of evil homosexual desires. People are not happy about this. The title matches the content of the article.

Here is the short title that appears on the front page:

Video of gay 'demon' ritual sparks anger

This makes it sound like there is a satanic homosexual cult out there; or a gay demon out there performing pagan rituals; or gay people pretending to be demons and holding unholy rituals. And people are pissed about it.

I wish journalists/editors would be a bit more careful about this kind of stuff.

[Cartollomew]

I think it's the journalist's equivalent of premature ejaculation - there are so man exciting buzz-words to be used WHAT DO I DO? WHAT DO I DO?

SKWEHHHHHHHHHH.

Oh dear. We'll just write down what I have and try again later...

[dukkha]

I'm not entirely certain that sort of thing is accidental or unintentional. I've seen a number of articles where the main header gives a very different idea to the article, but is not 'technically' inaccurate. Often the title matches a little closer to the ideological slant of the publication.