Terror! Headline v Reality
Written by Peter
This is the headline today for a Guardian article about a recently released report by a well-respected security and defence think tank (the Royal United Services Institute) about Al-Qaida affiliated groups in North and East Africa. Alarming stuff right? Until you read down to the penultimate paragraph of the article which notes that RUSI’s report concedes that;
“there is no direct public evidence that the groups are provoking terrorist attacks in Britain”
I suppose it wouldn’t make for such an interesting headline…
Discussion (7 Comments)
I think the key word in that headline is ‘could’….
Hi Tom,
I guess the problem I have with it is not that the headline isn’t technically accurate, it’s that it’s an alarmist way to approach the issue. I’d have wanted to see the bit about there being no evidence for it given higher billing in the article than a sentence in the penultimate paragraph.
Replace the word ‘warns’ with ‘guesses’ and it starts to become more accurate.
As an aside every time I hear the word ‘thinktank’ I groan- there’s an oxymoron if ever there was one.
Exactly – if there’s no evidence to back it up then it’s a guess. About imminent attack from evil forces on the dark continent…
The irony of the two duck posts above is, I hope, not lost on readers.
On the one hand there is…..
… the ‘dark continent’, home of malcontents determined to snatch our children from us before the food can be put in their mouths, either by radicalisation or by the ‘evil deeds’ they’ll do to snuff out their lives as they go about their daily lives on buses and tubes……………
………or a place that deserves our sympathy, empathy, care, time….er…well maybe just some money to buy food we which can witness being put in the mouths of ‘our’ children (well we ARE buying ‘them’ aren’t we?) and can then feel smug about, and forget for a while….
Damn I’m confused. Will the real Dark Continent please stand up and come forward……?
I think the headline is accurate, I mean, there ‘could’ be a threat…. Maybe, possibly… But yes, you’re right, it’s blatantly an alarmist, sensationalised headline. Imagine instead if it had read ‘There is no evidence jihadists in Africa could pose terror threat to U.K.’ Now that would have been perhaps more accurate, but less attention grabbing. And we all know that the primary reason for a headline is to grab your attention…
Hi Tom,
Agreed yes. Not unusual to see sensationalist headlines but this one irritated me more than most:)