Why the misleading headlines?

[asaratis]

Here is just one example of the misleading headlines that we seem to get on a steady basis. When a so-called journalist makes it seem that he is quoting someone verbatim, I tend to look for where the person actually said what is presented.

Obama: I won?t make churches conduct gay marriages | WashingtonExaminer.com

Obama: I won't make churches conduct gay marriages.



In section called
Here’s Obama’s full statement:

..those words do not appear.

Do you think it is unfair for authors to mislead people concerning quotes? Can you explain why many of them feel the need to re-phrase what was actually said?

 

[Pogo]

Here is just one example of the misleading headlines that we seem to get on a steady basis. When a so-called journalist makes it seem that he is quoting someone verbatim, I tend to look for where the person actually said what is presented.

Obama: I won?t make churches conduct gay marriages | WashingtonExaminer.com

Obama: I won't make churches conduct gay marriages.



In section called
Here’s Obama’s full statement:

..those words do not appear.

Do you think it is unfair for authors to mislead people concerning quotes? Can you explain why many of them feel the need to re-phrase what was actually said?

We surely do get misleading headlines, or ones that single out some minor insignificant aspect of a story at the expense of the real story (Paula Deen) but what you have here is a bad example. Paraphasing a subject in the headline with a colon is common practice, and everybody should know by now it isn't verbatim unless it's inside quotes.

But there are plenty of good examples and we could make this thread a repository dustbin as a place to call them out. I'd be into that.