Comments on: Telegraph puts up most misleading headline ever

By: andy

andy — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:19:52 +0000

lol @ CQT. Personally I’d rather have an announcement of the discovery of extraterrestrial life that is momentous, rather than having it ruined by a bunch of “crying wolf” and bad journalism.

(Though an extraterrestrial wolf would be pretty cool, no…)

By: CQT

CQT — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:03:23 +0000

Once in a while I get the subtle feeling that you guys get as much pleasure out of saying different things don’t contain any signs of life what so ever.

Reminds me of an Onion article I read once:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/38618

Someday when 100 percent unmistakeable signs of life are found somewhere in space, I can imagine you guys saying, “La-la-la-lah, I’m not listening to you!!! There is nooooooo life in the universe!!!!” Kinda like Bagdad Bob.

By: Law Mom

Law Mom — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:46:23 +0000

Spirit saw its own reflection in the silica (it’s the main ingredient of window glass, after all) and figured that the rover was a sign of not only life but of an intelligent designer. The headline should have been “Mars Rover Finds God.”

By: AJ Milne

AJ Milne — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:35:33 +0000

… erm…. that’s ‘intelligent’.

(Bangs head…)

I meant to do that. Really.

By: AJ Milne

AJ Milne — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:31:35 +0000

Mars Rover discovers evidence for not-really-terribly-inteligent vanished civilization...

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:15:31 +0000

I wouldn’t go as far as to call the Telegraph ‘normally sensible’, unless you consider somewhere right of Genghis Khan as sensible, but their science coverage is generally good.

However, this is reflected in the actual article. The headline will not have been written by the person who wrote the article but by a sub-editor who knows nothing about science and just skimmed the story (that’s the way these things work). This often leads to good stories with really weird (and sometimes misleading or even completely contradictory) headlines.

By: Michael Lonergan

Michael Lonergan — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:57:15 +0000

Newspapers resorting to sensationalism to sell copies? What next?