Here’s something that happens sometimes:
- You got to Drudge or another Alt-Media news source (e.g., a blog) that provides links to stories on MSM sources.
- One particular link is really intriguing.
- You click it to get to the story on the other side of the link.
- You find out that the headline, and most of the story, is not at all what was suggested by the link.
- What’s happened is that the linker picked something out of the story that he considered the most important point, even though it was buried in a longer piece.
- You agreed with him: This was the most important point. So you’re disappointed that the whole story isn’t about it.
This is happening more and more, and it’s a reflection of a new Internet reality: The MSM is no longer in charge of headlines.
Sure, they are in charge of the headlines that they give stories on their own sites. But they’re not in charge of the headlines given to the same stories when they are linked on other sites.
The MSM headline for it is "Dearborn resident helped terror group." As it’s written, it’s about a Middle Eastern man who lives in Dearborn, Michigan who has admitted to helping Hezbollah and who has now gone to jail.
That’s not the real story, though.
The real story is buried toward the end of the piece:
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Kourani bribed a Mexican consular official in Beirut to get a visa to travel to Mexico. Kourani and a traveling companion then paid another man in Mexico to be smuggled across the southern U.S. border Feb. 4, 2001, the government said.
WAIT A COTTON-PIKKIN’ MINNIT!
We have VERIFIED PROOF that terrorists (like this yahoo) have been sneaking across the Mexican border???
THAT’S the story!!!
People have been concerned about this for a long time, but if we’ve actually CAUGHT somebody who DID it, THAT’S the fact that need to be trumpeted from the housetops!
It’s what needs to go at the top of the "inverted pyramid" that journalists are supposed to use in writing their stories (whereby the most important fact is mentioned first, then the second most important fact, then the third, and so on).
Drudge got it right when he headlined this story as terrorists sneaking across the southern border.
The MSM missed the REAL story in trying to slavishly viewing these events through "the local angle."
And the reason the MSM titled it their way is because they do not want ANY controls along the Mexican border.
In journalism I know they talk about writing like an inverted pyramid with the most important facts first and the least important towards the end. In reality as you noticed more and more stores are plain pyramids with the most important aspects of a story buried at the bottom.
As a journalist, I can tell you that in recent years the Inverted Pyramid style of writing has been more or less demoted to one option among many. Technological advances made it possible to demote the Inverted Pyramid. You see, before computer programs existed for laying out newspaper pages, editors needed to have the option of cutting the size of any story to open up space for late breaking news. That’s why the Inverted Pyramid style was created — so the least interesting or important parts of the story would be placed at the end and could easily be lopped off if page layout demanded it.
But with computers, it’s a lot easier to squeeze stories onto a page. So there’s less constraint on journalists’ writing styles. Now they are freer to be more creative or to write more interesting stories, something that was often difficult to do with the Inverted Pyramid.
And the reason the MSM titled it their way is because they do not want ANY controls along the Mexican border.
Now you know why they’re called the Fourth Estate — because the State doesn’t want any controls along the border, either.
Speaking of this pyramid has anyone noticed this particularly annoying habit of some journalists?
You will read something like an entire article about how a Pakistani official denied a rumor that Osama Bin Laden was captured along the border. The article will talk about the rumor, they’ll tell you who came up with the rumor, who affirmed it, who denied it, what we’re going to do about it, what we’re NOT going to do about it on and on with as much stuff as you could care to learn. And then…
the last sentence in the article will be something like. “Osama Bin Laden is suspected to be the mastermind behind the September 11th attack that destroyed the World Trade Towers in New York”.
I mean, what is the point of putting that worthless sentence at the very end?
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