Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

AIRLINE TERROR PLOT

...was the headline on BBC News 24 for this story yesterday.

Not in quotes. Not always with an explanatory subheadline.

Does that make it sound like there was a plot - denied by the accused - or not?

*edit*

Of course, it's the old staple defence that goes like this: "People don't just read the headline; you can't take the headline on its own as being representative of the story." So you can say what you like, pretty much, in a headline, so long as somewhere there's some contradiction of that headline, or some balancing factor. I tend to disagree, especially when it comes to front-page splashes or teases with no explanatory text.

The Hate's front-page today is PLOT TO BLOW SEVEN PLANES FROM THE SKY (denied by the accused) with the strap 'British Muslim gang planned worst atrocity since 9-11, jury told'. See the jury are told about the strap, but not the headline; the reader is sophisticated enough to know that PLOT TO BLOW SEVEN PLANES FROM THE SKY doesn't mean there was a plot to blow seven planes from the sky, just as AIRLINE TERROR PLOT doesn't mean there was an airline terror plot - or so goes the Get Out of Jail Free card defence of 'headline doesn't equal story'.

Over at the Express, there's a tease box on the front page that reads 'Terror gang's plot to blow up seven planes over Atlantic'. And that's it. Not a single other word anywhere. From those words, with no explanatory text, you're supposed to know that there wasn't necessarily a terror gang and they didn't necessarily plot to blow up seven planes over the Atlantic. See? Simple.

The thinking behind it, I can only guess, is that "Well, they did it, didn't they? They're bound to be convicted".

But what if they aren't? And what if they didn't do it? Does this mean newspapers can just decide who's innocent and who's not?

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