Hazardous Headline

Was looking at Herald.com and found this headline interesting:

5 dead after crash at "fly-in" community runway

I was intrigued because I had recently seen something on TV or perhaps the web about these Jetson-like communities that are centered around an airfield. Many of the houses have garages that are actually hangars for planes. So I clicked on the article only to find that the accident on the runway was a car wreck. While the headline is technically not incorrect, it is misleading in that the obvious implication is that this was an accident involving an airplane. It's often said that driving is statistically more dangerous than flying, and I suppose this event is just a little anecdotal proof of that but trusting the headline editors at the Herald can be pretty hazardous too.

Addendum: Check out some of the comments the Herald's thoughtful readers leave on this article:

I saw this jump in "Hooper", but look out for that tree!
Posted by: Dale Jr

BMW: The Ultimate "Driving" Machine.

FYI: Not Ultimate "Flying" Machine.

Posted by: Rexx Racer

seat belts are probably irrelevant under those conditions. Second-rate contenders for the Darwin Awards.
Posted by:

Tragic ... and all of us will pay for it via our insurance policies!
Posted by: R B Quinn

Can the families sue if it's proven that BMW is machanically intoxicating at certain speeds?

Don't we have some "slip-&-falls" down here in miami?

Posted by: Miami Project

Splitting a 2008 BMW in half requires you have lots of money and zero brains. Five less Republican voters to worry about this November.
Posted by:

Put it on YouTube. Jumping an 85-foot high embankment, became airborne for 200 feet and striking a large tree is even DUMBER than Bird Road Rudy. Hope they don't have children.
Posted by:

idiots, their big money didn't save them from their stupidity.
Posted by: miami redneck

Good.
Posted by: izzy

Questionable headlines at the Herald

One of the recurring themes of this blog is the quality of the headlines that are written for articles. This one caught the attention of the author of a blog called Dummie Funnies:

Want storm info? Fire gasbag Limbaugh, WIOD told

The story is a legimate one about the Broward county commission's threat to change the radio station that broadcasts its emergency information but the headline takes a swipe at Limbaugh. I guessed I missed the memo where keeping up (at least) the appearance of impartiality was no longer required from a serious newspaper. Besides the judgment of Limbaugh as a "gasbag" the headline is misleading. It should read "Want to broadcast storm info? Fire gasbag Limbaugh, WIOD told"

Headline Dissonance

A lot of people might be surprised to learn that newspaper headlines aren't written by each article's author. Instead they are written by specialists called headline editors. Of course their work is very important because the headline is probably the most important factor in determining whether a reader will read an article or skip it.

But headline editors also have a big responsibility to capture the essence of the story in an unbiased manner because some people will read only the headline, skip the story and walk away with an impression of what the story said.

Well, Robert from 26th Parallel takes a look at some recent Herald headlines and discusses whether they were really appropriate to the story content.

In today's Herald

The headline for a story by Barry Jackson about Tim Hardaway's anti-gay remarks reads:

Hardaway's gay bashing brings swift rebuke

I thought "gay bashing" was direct physical or verbal harrassment of gays. Regardless of how ignorant or plain dumb Hardaway's opinions were, they were just that, opinions. That's not gay bashing.

----O----

In a story about a potential exodus from Cuba, Pablo Bachelet quotes an unnamed "expert" who "warned that up to 500,000 may try to leave the island after Castro's death."

I understand the need to keep the identities of some sources confidential, particularly government sources, but Bachelet does not even tell us whether this source is a US government source or some other self-styled "expert". The problem of course is that we have no idea what went into the 500,000 figure. Did the "expert" pull it out of the sky? Was a mathematical model used? What assumptions were made? Essentially the 500,000 figure is useless and highly questionable without that information. The thing is that it will, no doubt, be siezed upon by other media.