THE IMPORTANCE OF CHOOSING A GOOD HEADLINE
In today's section I am going to analyze two headlines about the same new. Both are from a newspaper that can be read physically or online. The first is El Heraldo, it belongs to the city where the event occurred. The second newspaper is El Español.
In this news, they talk about a young man (25-30 years old) who ran naked through the streets with a lethal weapon in his hand in the city of Zaragoza. The boy was running through the road without caring about cars or people. He was screaming and ended up stabbing the knife as many times as necessary to cause death. He did not hurt anyone, nor did he threaten them. The arrival of the police was the trigger for the boy to stick the knife.
After the brief summary of this news, we can imagine the situation and draw conclusions that at no time will be 100% clear since we do not know what happened to the boy. Well, thanks to the headlines offered by the different media, we get an effect on negative readers. When I say negative, I refer to the fact that a simple piece of news can incite hate or end up in a political or social issue that is irrelevant.
The news of the herald shows the following headline:
A young Syrian with mental problems takes his life in front of the Police in Zaragoza.
On the other hand, El Español has the following lines as its headline:
A young man dies in Zaragoza after stabbing himself with a knife shouting "Allahu Akbar" before the Police.
If I had started this analysis of this work by putting one or the other headline, the mentality and beliefs reading the news would have been different. As readers El Español we would think that the boy was a terrorist who was trying to send a message, hurt himself or perhaps someone. On the other hand, El Heraldo makes us think that a young man had mental problems. In both cases the origin of him is cited, in this case Syrian, who had lived in Germany, and who now lived in Zaragoza with his mother.
I find it interesting to talk about these two headlines since I believe that only professionals should judge. In turn, readers must know what to believe, empathize and respect. I believe that both terrorism and mental health are very sensitive, present and important issues today. Whatever happens to him, a human being has taken his own life.
Finally note that this news has been affected in turn thanks to the number of videos of this poor boy. It is a dehumanization of suffering. In conclusion, we must know that mental health is very important and must be above all privileges. At the same time, that all help is necessary and that all health and emergency services can be counted on to help people of any age improve their mental health and can intervene in risky situations such as the one experienced on November the 23 , 2021.