February 10, 2004
(Updated) The Irrelevance Of Headline Writers
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
There's an Associated Press story today about what was found in the home of the suspect in the 2001 murder of a University of Portland student.
What was found? Pornographic material, handcuffs, a magazine with an article on sex and murder, a book on knots, ropes, electrical cords, women's jewelry, and bullets from three different types of guns.
So what does the lead-off paragraph focus on, leaving the rest until later? The pornography, handcuffs, and magazine. And what's the headline on the article? "Handcuffs, porn found in home of UP murder suspect."
You'd think perhaps that, for example, a book of knots and some ropes would be more relevant to a crime involving strangulation. But not only are they not mentioned in the headline, they are relegated to the article's seventh paragraph.
Or, for that matter, you'd think maybe the magazine with an article on sex and murder might get some headline action. Not that we're arguing that reading material causes murder, but at least that's more directly relevant to the crime at hand than simple pornography.
Last time we checked, wire services don't participate in television "sweeps" periods, so that can't be the explanation for all of this.
Now, we won't assert that in no way shape or form will the suspect's taste for pornography play into his case as it unfolds. But its sheer prominence in this AP story seems rather overblown and little more than a play on the titillation and shame with which people tend to react when the word "pornography" is mentioned.
Not that the Associated Press cares, but perhaps they'd like to know they we've viewed pornography. We might have even owned some at some point. We also owned handcuffs -- as part of a Halloween costume (we were one half of a well-known team of FBI investigators into the paranormal).
But we're pretty sure these things don't somehow inherently lead to murder, no matter how bad the past two weeks might have been over here at PORTLAND COMMUNIQUE world headquarters.
Update
Well, we seem to have spaced on the fact that a similar story with an eerily similar headline appeared in yesterday's Portland Tribune. A reader mentions this other headline in the comments here.
Comments (1)
Noah Brimhall on 11 Feb 2004
Happy to see your comment on this. When I saw this headline on the front of the Tribune yesterday I had a similiar reaction.