REUTERS MODIFIES PHILIP AGEE HEADLINE TO APPEASE ANGRY READERS
January 14th 2008 01:16
Media detractors who say the mass media doesn’t respond to the input of readers needs might be surprised by the action of the globally powerful news agency Reuters last week.
On January 9, Reuters ran this headline: “CIA whistle-blower Philip Agee dies in Cuba.”The first paragraph of the news story running under this headline ran, “HAVANA (Reuters) - Philip Agee, a former CIA agent who exposed its undercover operations in Latin America in a 1975 book, died in Havana, the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma said on Wednesday..”
On January 11 Reuters republished the news item, but this time with a new headline which read: “Ex-CIA spy who exposed agents dies in Cuba.”
Reuters also posted an example of one of the readers’ comments: Reader Joe wrote, “Regarding your headline, Agee was a traitor who exposed fellow CIA agents to violence and murder by revealing their names in his book. False lionising of this traitor makes YOU HIS ACCOMPLICES. If you hate America so much, then base your offices in Cuba. Need help packing? LET US KNOW…”
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