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Actual headline: "Microsoft joins HTML 5 standard fray in earnest" From the guidelines: "You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous edi
by Elepsis 17y ago
Actual headline: "Microsoft joins HTML 5 standard fray in earnest"
From the guidelines: "You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it."
What part of the article said anything about derailing? Sigh.
- pohl 17y agoMust a posting preserve the editorial spin in the original headline? "In Earnest" indicates sincere and intense conviction. This value judgement is at odds with journalistic neutrality, isn't it? I took the HN headline to be a removal of editorial spin, not an addition of gratuitous spin. (Edit: Ok, I missed the word 'derailing'. Both headlines are spintastic.)
- Elepsis 17y agoI would rather trust the journalist (or editor or author) of the piece to come up with his or her own headlines. Even if the headline is "spintastic" -- which I don't see in this case -- presumably it accurately reflects the article. That's kind of the point of headlines.
- pohl 17y agoChecking to see if a headline accurately reflects the article is a poor decision procedure for detecting the presence or absence of spin. The most you can say, when they match, is that the headline and the article might have similar spin. But no need to presume, the article is right there. It makes no statement at all about the Microsoft's motivations, let alone the sincerity of them. The phrase "in earnest", on the other hand, asserts a frame for interpreting the event - the same function served by the word "derailing" in the HN headline. Interpretive frames are the very essence of spin.