Thursday, March 08, 2012

Ha-Ha-Haaretz Example of How To Lead a Story

What caught my eye was the headline in my Google alert:

Palestinian killed after stabbing soldier in West Bank (Ch. 10)

which is from the "Breaking News" box.

And here is the story's lead:

A Palestinian man was shot and thought to have been killed by Israel Defense Forces on Thursday after stabbing a soldier in a West Bank village near Hebron.

The story itself is headlined and sub-headlined so:

IDF soldier moderately hurt after stabbed during West Bank arrest

Soldier returns fire at assailant, killing him; incident takes place in West Bank village south of Hebron while army forces arrested a Palestinian released as part of the Shalit prisoner swap.

Notice how the paper's bias shows through, blatantly?

Now, if I was editor, I would have written:

Arab attempts to kill soldier; shot and killed

or

Arab terrorist stabs soldier; killed by return fire

What would you have written?

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UPDATE

Here's Reuters:

Israeli troops kill Palestinian teenager in West Bank

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - An Israeli soldier shot dead a Palestinian and wounded another who stabbed him on Thursday, as troops carried out an arrest in the occupied West Bank, a local medical worker and the Israeli army said.


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1 comment:

NormanF said...

Sarcastically speaking, I'm surprised the IDF soldier hasn't been arrested yet and charged yet with the heinous crime of defending his own life!

With Haaretz, you can be sure the truth gets buried somewhere between the lead headline and the conclusion. One ever wonders if Israeli prosecutors ever read the entire story.

There's more to news and life in Israel than misleading newspaper headlines lead people to believe.