I've seen a lot of posts to the list using Britain's Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk) like it was a credible newspaper. I was reminded that this 'paper' was only one step above the enquirer when both looked at their site and read the following headline:
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg 'hacked into emails of rivals and journalists' http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1255888/Facebook-founder-Mark-Zuckerberg-hacked-emails-rivals-journalists.html This flat out says that he did it. No question, no appeal, no 'alleged'. He actually hacked into emails. The headline is fact. But wait. The headline of fact is immediately turned into something else in the first paragraph of the article: "Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been accused of hacking into the email accounts of rivals and journalists." Ah, so it's really accused, not been convicted of. It's not fact but supposition. This is a perfect example of bleh journalism. Headlines that lie in order to pull people into a story that may have the truth...a truth that rejects the headline. The converse can be seen in a recent article from AFP. "Interpol issues new arrest notices for Dubai killing" http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iBv9X3x50ejqb71WCYsnajvA3iOw Arrest notices, not warrants. This is an important and overlooked technical term. Not only do they use notices, they explain what they are: Interpol's "Red Notices" -- which are not international arrest warrants but alert member states that Dubai would like the suspects to be arrested and extradited -- made no mention of the alleged Israeli connection. Wow. No other news source has done that simple job of saying exactly what a red notice is. The closest I read was that it was a call from Interpol to arrest the suspects, not that it was a notice that someone else wanted to arrest them. In other words, all the other articles I read implied that they were warrants, in other words Interpol wanted to arrest them. To make the article even more exact, they use the word allegedly to describe the picture that Dubai says shows two of the suspects. Just about every other news report I read said that the photo did show the suspects - fact, not supposition. In truth, we don't know if the pictures are real, if the people in it are Mossad, or, or, or. We have a lot of maybes. Another thing that really made this article stand out from others on the same subject was that it kept to that subject. It didn't wander off into why al-Mabhuh was in Dubai or how Dubai plans to ban Israelis by recognizing their "physical features and the way they speak." Neither have to do with the posting of a new notice or the state of the investigation. The only problem I would have with the article would be the standard song and dance of using militant in place of terrorist. Terrorist attacks are what he performed and happily admitted to in the past - fact. But the bottom line is that I thought that the AFP did a proper job of reporting on the event. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:313090 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
