NYT Rewrites Gaza Headline: Was It Too Accurate?

[G_j]

http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/07/17/nyt-rewrites-gaza-headline-was-it-too-accurate/
By Peter Hart

(7/16/14) the New York Times posted its first account of the Israeli strike that killed four young Palestinians on a beach in Gaza. The headline looked like this:



That headline appropriately conveys the horrors witnessed and documented by the Times reporters.
But at some point–around 9:00 pm, according to the website Newsdiffs–the headline was changed to the version that appears on the front page of the New York Times today: "Boys Drawn to Gaza Beach, and Into Center of Mideast Strife."



Was there something wrong with noting in the headline that the boys were killed? Do readers learn more being told they were "drawn into strife"?
Headlines are one very prominent way that news stories are framed. In this case, it does a disservice to the reporting underneath.
There's a television equivalent to a headline–the information an anchor provides to introduce a piece. The NBC Nightly News last night (7/16/14) led with Gaza, and the segment by Richard Engel was vivid and powerful. But anchor Brian Williams' introduction included this comment:

When Hamas launches rockets from Gaza, Israel hits back.


Like the Times, that set-up does a disservice to the story that it introduces–and serves to instruct viewers that Israel's strikes should be thought of as retaliatory, laying ultimate responsibility on Palestinians for their own deaths.

[marmar]

1. Goodness. That second headline is pathetic.

nt

[alsame]

2. If you just glance at

the second headline, you don't even know they were killed.

[G_j]

17. and as far as I can tell

it's not even true

[NealK]

3. K&R

[lark]

4. Totally pathetic and craven replacement headline

Young children were killed and they have to make light of it?

[Ilsa]

5. Shame on those kids for getting in the way

of Israel's missile.

[sadoldgirl]

6. It reminds me of NYT slogan

All the news that is FIT to print, or something close to it. It does not say "all the truth"; it also leaves it up to the Times to define what is "fit". We have seen these kind of things before, I think. Was there not a war in Iraq once?

[QuestForSense]

11. We should ask Judith Miller.

[Treant]

7. The next revision?

"Boys Drawn to Gaza Beach, Have Wonderful Time For Most of the Day."

That's about the only headline that would have been weaker, sadder, and more duplicitous. My, how the Gray Lady has fallen.

[cantbeserious]

8. Apparently, The JDL Has Struck Again

eom

[alp227]

13. Seriously? nt

[cantbeserious]

14. Someone Or Something Pressured The NYT To Change That Headline

eom

[alp227]

15. WHO is the "someone or something"? The JDL?

Do you understand how crazy that post sounds?

[cantbeserious]

16. Not Crazy At All - The JDL Advocates For Israel Not Palestine - Censoring Newspapers

All in a day's work.

[woo me with science]

9. War is Peace!

[QuestForSense]

10. A good example of the way the media tailor the news so that it lies better.

[Douglas Carpenter]

12. wait a second, are you suggesting there is a pro-Israeli bias in the media??

Why I never