Case study: Headlines that (dis)inform!

In Moldovan mass media such headlines are especially frequent on the websites of media outlets. Given that the Internet has taken the second place in the top of sources of information after television, according to the November issue of the Barometer of Public Opinion, a large amount of advertising is directed at the cyberspace. Hence, the fight for views. Unfortunately, however, the winners of this fight are business owners and their clients, and not readers, who instead get poor-quality and poorly prepared news.

A first example has been recently suggested by a user of social networks, who wrote on Saturday, 31 January, that he wants high-quality mass media in Moldova. This reaction had been caused by an article on www.curentul.md under the headline “He is the mayor that the people of Chisinau want” (“El este primarul pe care şi-l doresc chişinăuienii”; the print screen of the article is attached). The site’s visitor was disappointed by the fact that journalists only presented a young person who is in the top of an online survey conducted by www.politics.md. Reporters did not even present the final results of this survey, showing only the voting results after the first few hours. However, already in the lead journalists announce that “activist Marcel Darie, president of the Pro Chisinau association, is the mayor that the people of Chisinau want.” Only in the fourth paragraph they mention that “the survey will be conducted between 30 January and 27 February 2015 online, through a call-center and in Chisinau municipality, on a sample of over 1,000 persons.” So, the reader had to skim through the entire article so as to eventually understand that, in fact, only after 27 February they might find out what mayor the people of Chisinau really want.

The headline is the reader’s first contact with the text. According to the Guidelines on Style containing Ethical Norms, edited by the Association of Independent Press, a headline “should present the information briefly, clearly, to the point, neutrally and without nuances. The essence of the problem should be grasped in several well-chosen words… Headlines should contain no ambiguities… and present information without exaggerations.” The headline provided by www.curentul.md misled readers and presented information in a wrong manner.

Another article that misled readers had been published by Ziarul National on 22 January 2015 under the headline “Former minister ARRESTED” (“Fostul ministru, ARESTAT”; the print screen of the article is attached). Considering that at that time there were discussions in Moldova about the creation of a new governing coalition, which was to also designate the future Government, the headline definitely caught the readers’ interest. Only after reading the article one could find that, in fact, it spoke about a former Romanian minister. Journalists announced that “the judges of the Supreme Court in Bucharest admitted the application of the National Anti-Corruption Office for preventive arrest for 30 days of former Interior minister Cristian David, accused of bribery.” Journalists can be suspected of intentionally omitting in the headline the fact that the minister was Romanian. Had they done that, the number of views for this article would have been much smaller. Journalists cheated, were dishonest with readers, and if they continue such practices, they risk losing credibility.

As we said earlier, unfortunately, in the race for views, the readers have the most to lose, as they get poor-quality and poorly prepared news. Another example is the article published by www.unimedia.md on 4 December 2014. The title says that “Russia is sending trucks with humanitarian aid to Transnistria” (“Rusia trimite camioane cu ajutor umanitar în Transnistria”). The title is sensational, given the situation in the region. At that time, the Russian Federation announced about sending a caravan with humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine. The gesture was harshly criticized by the authorities in Kiev, according to which the caravan transported munitions for the rebels in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. So, the dispatch of a similar caravan to the Transnistrian region of the Republic of Moldova seems to be rather worrying news, especially since such a caravan would have to pass through the Ukrainian area controlled by the country’s constitutional authorities. How, then, could a caravan get to the Transnistrian region?!? Unfortunately, reporters did not make an effort to find the answer to this question. Moreover, they did not even seek to confirm or disprove this information. In the first paragraph, we learn that “Moscow is sending a humanitarian caravan of 60 trucks to Transnistria as part of a project of integration into the Eurasian Union,” but the source is a Transnistrian news agency, Novosti PMR. In the following paragraph, reporters announced that “within one month, the first seven vehicles with medical equipment and furniture reached Transnistria, and three of them came on Wednesday, according to Russian non-governmental organization Eurasian Integration, mentioning that ‘dozens of other trucks are on their way’ to Tiraspol,” the quotation having been taken from mediafax.ro. The article quotes only the director of this organization, Aleksandr Argunov. There is no position of the Moldovan Bureau for Reintegration, no position of the OSCE, which participates in the “5+2” negotiations, nor a reaction from the embassies of Ukraine and Russia in Chisinau. All these sources would have confirmed or disproved the news. The headline of the article was sensational, but the article itself was very poorly prepared, and the credibility of the quoted source can easily be doubted.   In fact, the following day the assistant of the head of the Border Guard of Ukraine, Oleg Slobodean, negated that a Russian caravan with humanitarian aid was on its way to Tiraspol. “Currently, we have no information about the transit of the territory by a caravan of trucks from Russia for the Transnistrian region. We received no requests confirming the movement of trucks. They did not cross the Ukrainian border,” Oleg Slobodean said. Had Unimedia journalists tried to verify the news, they might not have misled readers with the information that “Russia is sending trucks with humanitarian aid to Transnitria.”

Conclusion: The headline is truly the only “hook” that journalists have to attract readers. However, the headline must inform readers, not mislead them. Over a short term the portal might obtain more views, but in the long term, it risks losing credibility. By cheating, reporters violate the principles of journalists’ ethical norms, and the Guidelines on Style containing Ethical Norms say that “Journalism does not allow for speculation. We shall abide by the truth and respect the people’s right for truth, considering that it is the first responsibility of a journalist.”
 
The case study has been produced within the project “Promoting media literacy among Moldovan citizens”, implemented by the IJC with financial support of the U.S. Embassy in Moldova. The study does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the funder.