Saturday, December 22, 2007

One More Journalistic Oddity

A mystifying headline and subtitle. What is remarkable is that there is no evidence for anything said in the title or the subtitle of this article; the article itself not only provides no evidence for it but provides the evidence against it, namely, that what the title attributes to the Pope was actually said in an editorial of L'Osservatore Romano, not written by the Pope (who has weightier responsibilities than to edit the Vatican newspaper).

In newspaper journalism it's often the case that the headlines are editorial decisions, so the bizarre titles shouldn't be attributed to the reporter for the piece, Erin McWhirter.