Whilst scanning the stories on the BBC's website this morning, I found this story;
Passer-by pushes suicide man off bridge
Before reading the actual story, the headline created this image in my head where a person just walking by the suicider on the bridge and pushing him off. Like the guy was getting sick of people pretending they were going to kill themselves, sick of them ruining his day and holding up traffic and other peoples' lives only to get talked out of it and leave to go about his business when everybody else has to reschedule and work around the hold up that was this suicider. I saw this person being so annoyed by this that they had decided they had had enough and were going to end that person's life for them because they couldn't do it themselves. It was a good headline. It certainly sucked me in.
But the story didn't turn out like that. The man had climbed up to talk to the suicide man and for some reason was getting him to shake hands with him and when he did, the man pushed the suicider off the bridge and onto the inflatable thing (or emergency cushion) that the emergency crews had put there. So he was still pushed, but not to his death as my mind had jumped to. The guy isn't being charged for murder but might be getting charged for intentional harm. The suicider might get charged for disturbing public order.
After reading the story I just couldn't stop thinking about how good the headline was. It said exactly what was happening in the story but made you think so much more of it. I just made assumptions.
I think it was an irresponsible headline. My heart leaped when he was pushed, because I was expecting what you were. I agree it was clever (if it was deliberate, which I hope it wasn't) but more akin to something I'd expect to see in the Daily Mail, and not on the BBC.
ReplyDeleteWell maybe you are right. An irresponsible headline but an irresponsible one that got a lot of views. At least it wasn't a video of someone getting pushed to their death and I do agree, not BBC's classiest story.
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