politics

The Jackson Five

September 29, 2004

AP’s Misleading Headline (click
for larger image)

Earlier today, the Kerry-Edwards campaign announced that Jesse Jackson had signed on as a senior advisor. A few hours later, the Associated Press released a story headlined, “Jackson: Dems Treat Blacks Like Victims.”

We were struck by the juxtaposition — it seemed a decidedly odd move for Jackson to attack his own party on the day he was officially welcomed to the fold. Perhaps, we thought, the AP was referring to a different Jackson. Michael? Andrew? Tito?

But then we glanced at the first four words of the story: “The Rev. Jesse Jackson …” “Zoinks!” we thought, “it was Jesse Jackson offering a slap in the face to Democrats who had asked for a helping hand!”

Or perhaps not.

We read on, and a good thing, too. As it turns out, the AP wasn’t talking about Jesse — or Tito, for that matter. Here’s the full first paragraph:

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The Rev. Jesse Jackson and other black political leaders spread a message of victimization that leads most blacks to vote Democratic, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson charged Wednesday.

AP writer Genaro C. Armas does eventually make clear which man is which, but casual readers scanning the article could be forgiven for coming away with the wrong impression, given that the name Jesse Jackson also shows up in the second, fourth and fifth paragraphs of the piece.

This is the second time today that we’ve had to parse for you an AP headline that flat-out leaves readers with the wrong impression and actually distorts the import of the story that follows.

We hate to repeat ourselves so quickly — but we will if we have to.

Brian Montopoli

Brian Montopoli is a writer at CJR Daily.