You can flip through the evolution of the NYT article[1] and see that when the story was first published there were hardly any details available. Even the earli

You can flip through the evolution of the NYT article[1] and see that when the story was first published there were hardly any details available. Even the earliest archived version of the story was from 5:30pm and it had already been updated once. Since most headlines are written by an editor (and not the reporter) it’s exceedingly unlikely this was a malicious attempt to downplay what had happened and instead was a matter of a delay between the reporting on the ground and an editor getting a chance to review and change the headline in light of the new reporting. I can’t find the original story that was filed but I would be willing to bet the reporting on the decapitation wasn’t yet solidly confirmed when the original headline was written. Most people would consider that a good thing - showing restraint and avoiding the temptation to sensationalize headlines before having all of the facts. [1]http://web.archive.org/web/20201016193107/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/world/europe/france-decapitate-beheading.html http://web.archive.org/web/20201016193107/https://www.nytime...