Another week and another biased anti-streetcar headline from the Enquirer. Here is the latest article: City threatens Duke over streetcar costs.
No where in the article does it say the City threatened Duke Energy. It states the City is “investigating potential legal remedy.” It also says that the City's inability to reach an agreement "threatens to pose significant cost risk" to the project.
It does not say the City is Threatening Duke Energy. The word threat is a bias created by someone at the Enquirer. I'd like to know who wrote it. Headline writing is much talked about and usually creates a frenzied finger pointing effort. Reporters point to Editors. Editors are mum or point to someone else. In this changed internet age, I have to ask, does a reporter submit a story without a title/headline? On most blogging software you have to have a title to the story when you post it, even in draft form. Is that what the Enquirer does? Does the reporter include a headline along with the story when submitted and it then is modified by a copy-editor, content-editor, or layout designer?
Did the word "Threatens" start with Horstman or was it added after? No one will likely ever take blame (or would it be credit?) for the misuse of the word. We just have live with the bias, but we can and must call them out when they fail to present the truth to their readers.
The journalists do not attach the headlines. I don't know who does, but they don't.
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