When Drudge has a better headline than the Times, something is very wrong

About 10 years ago, when people probably had more attention span than they do now, a survey from a respected organization concluded that the majority of Americans read only headlines.

It was probably worse than that then — who wants to admit to such superficial habits, after all? — and it’s probably much worse than that now.

That’s one reason headlines matter a lot. It’s as far as most people get. The nuances of a story, no matter how much they may matter to reporters and their editors, don’t always break through. Headlines do.

Headlines in the New York Times — probably the most influential mainstream news organization in the nation — matter even more. They make their way into the news ecosystem and can pollute the waters.

That’s why it’s so confounding when such headlines are either wrong or misleading. Consider this one in this past week’s New York Times:

Trump Agrees to a Fox News Debate with Harris on Sept. 4

 

Reading this, a headline-grazer might think that the former president’s agreement was all that was necessary to make a Fox debate a reality. That Kamala Harris was on board. And that Donald Trump is ready for a fine, public-spirited exchange of views.

But that, of course, is not the case. In fact, Trump had backed out of a planned debate on Sept. 10th on ABC. He then came up with a new date, unilaterally changed the venue to Fox and decided it would be in an arena with a big audience, not in a studio with no audience.

Consider the Drudge Report’s headline, which — though not expressed in restrained journalistic language — does manage to get the truth across.

RATTLED TRUMP ONLY WANTS FOX DEBATE

Well, ok, you may say but that’s not the language of traditional news organization. They don’t express things so directly.

True enough. But here was the Washington Post, setting a better example: “Trump backs out of ABC debate, says he will only debate Harris on Fox.” Hmmm, quite a different takeaway.

OK, some argued, it was only one headline — and in the Times, whose erudite readership is already wise to Trump and mostly unlikely to vote for him, right? Much ado about nothing, in other words? Some observers thought so.

But I’m with Rem Rieder, a former USA Today columnist and editor of American Journalism Review, who put it directly: “It was a terrible headline and deserved all the criticism.”

And I’m also inclined to agree, at least somewhat, with Josh Marshall who thinks this headline is a microcosm of a greater issue: “I started out thinking that the Times had a small problem. But it’s a big one.” Marshall, who founded Talking Point Memo, and is an incisive observer of the political scene mused: “I don’t really fully understand its origins. But I know it when I see it.”

The Times, probably responding to the criticism, changed the headline online — twice!

Round 2: Trump Proposes a Fox News Debate

Round 3: Trump Backs Out of ABC Debate and Proposes One on Fox.

Quite a complicated journey to reality.

Why does this happen? I think it’s some combination of inattentive editing and a company-wide, defensive desire not to look opposed to Trump or “in the tank” for Democrats. I’m all for fairness and impartiality, but truth — including the way a story and its headline are framed — matters a whole lot, too. They don’t have to be opposed to each other.

And fairness must also extend to the reading audience, including the headline-grazers.

There have been many other dubious headlines in the past week or so, especially following Trump’s racist attacks on Harris at a gathering of Black journalists.

The Washington Post doesn’t always get it right. Here was their headline: “Harris faces a pivotal moment as Trump steps up attacks.” Really? Why is it a pivotal moment for her when he’s the one telling lies about her heritage and her history — that, for example, she just recently decided she was Black? And the Post was in good (read: bad) company across the media landscape.

More happily, I was thrilled this past week to watch Evan Gershkovich return to U.S. soil after his arrest on false charges and lengthy imprisonment in Russia. Here’s my Guardian column on that.

 

Finally, thanks very much to all subscribers here. I appreciate your support, your interest, and your comments, which I always read. We will continue focusing in this newsletter, as promised, not on the election horserace but on the consequences — “not the odds but the stakes.”

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