It’s only Tuesday but I’ve got a misleading headline to post already. Let’s hope I don’t break my record of three misleading headlines in the same week.

My complaint here isn’t with the New Yorker which ran the original story but with Yahoo who posted it on their scroll with no explanation.

IN LANDMARK DECISION, SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN MAIN REASON COUNTRY WAS STARTED we see as one of the top stories in the Yahoo list of stories.

Once I clicked the link it took me to the Borowitz Report from the New Yorker. Andy Borowitz is a well-known humorist and the contents of the story made it quickly clear that it was satire. I was not confused for a moment.

However, under the Yahoo story it simply listed the New Yorker as the source, not Borowitz. That’s practicing to deceive. They also had a picture of Justice Scalia next to the headline.

Don’t get me wrong, I love satire. I’d just like it to be marked as such so people know what they are getting. This headline was designed to deceive. They could have easily included the Borowitz Report text under the headline. There would certainly have been people who don’t know Borowitz is a humorist but that’s not Yahoo’s fault and such people would have quickly learned the nature of the Borowitz Report.

It’s not a big deal because anyone who goes to the story will quickly realize it is satire. It bothers me because with one little inclusion Yahoo would have been intellectually honest but they willfully chose to be deceitful in the attempt to garner more clicks. This sort of “we didn’t actually lie” reporting is not good for a healthy Republic.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Broken Throne
Next Release: The Black Sphere