Beware of Misleading Headlines (and articles)

Doing so can prevent hysteria.

As a critical reader, you already know to gather news from a variety of sources to find the most accurate information. You also know this is more important today than ever before, as a multitude of media exist, whether online, on TV/radio or, only occasionally these days, in print.

With so many options for digesting the news, it is incumbent upon each source to make the news as palatable as possible. This might involve strengthening the flavor to make it almost irresistible to ignore. An expert in writing professional news understands just how strong to make the flavor without drastically changing the recipe. In the battle to attract and retain news gastronomes and keep them from tasting what others offer, some news media add too many ingredients so that the flavor is distorted.

Enough with the cooking metaphors. Let’s get to the meat of the subject (oops).

Headlines and articles can be tweaked to make stories more tantalizing, thus changing the entire meaning of the piece. In these cases, the new meaning is more salacious than the original, which stirs the reader’s curiosity and perhaps even anger. Readers in turn share the “misinformation,” as it is often called, and the contorted story spreads.

By that point, it’s incredibly difficult to reign in the story and point readers toward the more accurate version. Once a more accurate version becomes available, the inaccurate or extreme version has taken hold. By the time the exaggerated story is proven to be misleading or false, little interest exists in correcting the situation.

Here's a good example of a straightforward news story being hijacked for the sake of sensationalism. This original article is from a publication called Life Site News. The reporter notes that a former FBI employee released an internal document claiming that white nationalists “are increasingly making common cause online with attendees of the Latin Mass.” For this reason, the FBI planned to amplify its mitigation of “Radical Traditionalist Catholics.”

In part, the internal FBI memo mentioned the “key assumption that racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists will continue to find Radical Traditionalist Catholic (RTC) ideology attractive and will continue to attempt to connect with RTC adherents, both via social media and in-person at places of worship.”

The memo also cited a report by the Southern Poverty Law Institute (SPLI) warning about certain “radical traditional Catholic hate groups.” These groups, the SPLI notes, “are not the same as Catholics who call themselves ‘traditionalists’ — people who prefer the old Latin Mass to the Mass now typically said in vernacular languages.” It should also be noted that some of the Traditional Catholic organizations deemed “hateful” by the SPLI simply adhere to the historic beliefs of the Church.

Reading the Life Site News article critically, it appears that some far-right extremists are nestling themselves inside the Traditional Catholic world, perhaps to recruit more far-right extremists but maybe to remain elusive. And while there are some “radical traditional Catholic” groups out there, a critical reader understands that extremist views exist in just about every religion. Therefore, it’s important to recognize that the FBI was not surveilling every single person who attends a Latin Mass.

Yet that is exactly how some publications chose to bend the story. The Traditional Catholic publication OnePeterFive shouted the headline “The FBI Is Coming After Trads.” Fox News sounded an even broader and more disturbing alarm with “The FBI Has Found a Gateway to Declare Christians as Criminals: Federal Whistleblower.” The latter piece quotes that whistleblower, Kyle Seraphin, as saying, "They [the FBI] have found a gateway in what they think is fringe Catholicism in order to move into Christians in general and declare them to be the actual criminals in this country or the potential terrorists.”

That’s not what the article from Life Site News, or the bits of the disclosed FBI memo, seem to be saying. It’s the narrative that some are taking, however, and as this narrative steamrolls forward, it will be harder to try to show a balanced perspective.

Interestingly, the FBI reports that it has removed the document from its system. Perhaps all the negative feedback did make an impression. And perhaps there is something to the idea that the FBI is scrutinizing Christians (especially Traditional Catholic) groups. The immediate reworking of the story to fit a narrative, though, is what should be avoided in journalism.

A critical reader can digest the article, conduct extra research, and decide if it’s worth concern. At best, the whistleblower story should make readers more keenly aware of what is happening around them. It should not, however, cause anger and confusion by jumping to the conclusion that the FBI is on an anti-Catholic crusade. That doesn’t mean that Catholics and anyone concerned about religious freedom shouldn’t store this article in the back of their minds and be on the lookout for follow-up news.

Plenty of other scenarios such as this one exist. It’s up to critical readers to look beyond the headlines and to search within the news for substantiated, factual content.