The Star Tribune this week published a story under the headline, “A New Heart, A Dark Heart?” (It’s interesting that this headline does not appear on the online version today, although search engines still find the original headline.)
The headline is pretty clearly meant to imply that a newly-transplanted heart drove a young man to plan a gruesome murder.
I thought the headline was awful, but I thought, at first, that I may be alone in that judgment.
Then I saw a letter to the editor in today’s Star Tribune:
The Aug. 14 headline, “A new heart, a dark heart?” that accompanies the story about the boy from Woodbury who had a heart transplant and is now charged with felonies was so sadly sensationalistic.
Although I am not in the medical field and have no medical expertise, I feel pretty confident that the idea that the heart of an 11-year-old boy, whose grieving parents generously donated to save another boy’s life four years ago, could be “dark” is ridiculous. You didn’t need that headline for people to read that story. I hope that all families involved in this tragedy were spared from seeing this headline.
Has the decline in circulation led to this much of a decline in standards?
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
We’ve written about the hype of liquid biopsies for years (see link in comment below). And now this…. https://www.statnews.com/2022/01/12/medicare-shouldnt-cover-liquid-biopsies-early-cancer-detection/
Case counts still matter. “(There) are stories that may not be told adequately if only hospitalizations and deaths are emphasized.” @garyschwitzer interviewed by @dbauder of @AP. https://apnews.com/article/omicron-changing-news-outlets-covid-data-da9272f7c4c8a109c3bfb56bed9e9c76
My friend Gary @garyschwitzer wrote to his city council representative in a Minnesota town about a Viva Las Vegas event scheduled for January.
The response he got seems to perfectly capture where we are now.
https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2021/12/2021-ends-with-covid-craziness-in-sports-and-politics/
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