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Thursday, March 09, 2006

Headline bias

There were many stories in the news today about the Israeli missile attack that killed Islamic Jihad leaders (using an ice cream truck) and unfortunately also killed three kids.

Predictably, the headlines in most newspapers spoke only about the kids:
Death of two boys in airstrike stirs anger in Gaza, soul-searching in Israel

Most of the stories, all based on AP reporter Sarah El Deeb's articles, have similar headlines, although most only had room for the "anger" part and not for the "soul-searching" part. Interestingly, the articles mentioned 3 boys and most headlines said 2 boys, showing the level of editorial care taken in most newspapers.

Also predictably, practically none of the stories highlighted in their headlines that Israel managed to get rid of two terrorists.

But by far the worst and most biased headline was in the Newark Star Ledger:
One Israeli missile, three dead kids