Sunday, April 17, 2011

The Telegraph really needs better headline writers

The day after Barack Obama was elected to the Presidency of the United States I stopped buying the Daily Telegraph (having given up on its Sunday sister long before). I had found its coverage of the American presidential elections so tedious and tendentious, so full of adulation of Obama and of venom towards Sarah Palin, so reluctant even to mention the Republican campaign that I saw no reason why I should give that newspaper any more of my money.

Since then its content has not improved though there are a few journalists who are readable and quite interesting; while their sub-editing and headline writing has definitely deteriorated. Bruno Waterfield's piece about True Finns the "Eurosceptic and anti-immigrant party" expecting to do well in the Finnish election is perfectly reasonable and factual. The headline says: "Finland elections: far right expected to make big gains". This is above a particularly unpleasant photograph of Timo Soini, the leader of True Finns.

How is being eurosceptic, wanting to control immigration and, above all, wishing to renegotiate the Portuguese bail-out that will cost Finland dearly "far right"?

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