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Basically making things up to make a headline.

3 min read

Better Society
Basically making things up to make a headline.
Source: BrightVibes

It’s quite unbelievable how the Sun misrepresented a survey to paint a negative image of Muslims. Unfortunately, they’re not alone.

In case you were looking for evidence how many media believe that creating sensational, fear mongering headlines is a good strategy, you need to look no further.

They interpreted a survey falsely, by stating 1 in 5 of Brit Muslims' would be sympathetic towards Jihadism. A headline which suggests that we should be afraid of a large percentage of Brit Muslims. Now remember that many readers don't read any further than just the headlines... But even if they do, the actual article also turned out to be full of mistakes.
What the Sun claimed They interpreted a survey falsely, by stating 1 in 5 of Brit Muslims’ would be sympathetic towards Jihadism. A headline which suggests that we should be afraid of a large percentage of Brit Muslims. Now remember that many readers don’t read any further than just the headlines… But even if they do, the actual article also turned out to be full of mistakes. Source: the Sun

The article was a complete misrepresentation of the actual results of the poll. 

In a rectification which was published by The Times (shamefully not the Sun who mislead its readers) it says they

"Did not distinguish between those who go to fight for IS and those who join other factions in Syria, and it did not ask about attitudes towards Isis itself. Our headline… was misleading in failing to reflect this."

I would not be surprised if The Times printed this in small print on a page hardly anyone ever reads.
Rectification in The Times I would not be surprised if The Times printed this in small print on a page hardly anyone ever reads. Source: None

Audience smarter than Editors

Judging from the Sun Facebook comments, their audience seems to be a lot wiser than the editors of the newspaper. Fortunately!

Readers respond. Faith in humanity ‘restored’ Source: Facebook the Sun

How the news makes us feel

See below the auto suggestions by Google. They confirm scientific research that the news has a negative influence on us and our society. Media like the Sun, Metro News and many others, are contributing to that willingly.

Who needs research with these Google Auto suggestions? Source:

Not just the Sun or the UK… it’s global

Take this example from Metro News in the Netherlands. They blatantly turned a positive news fact into a negative one. 

The news fact is that crime in big cities in the Netherlands has decreased substantially. Therefore, the crime rates in big cities has dropped to the level of crime that is usually associated with small cities and villages. This is what they made of this optimistic development.

Reading this headline, one logically concludes that crime rates in villages is rising and are increasingly dangerous places. One can't be safe anywhere anymore. Right? Wrong!
Villages are now just a dangerous as the city Reading this headline, one logically concludes that crime rates in villages is rising and are increasingly dangerous places. One can’t be safe anywhere anymore. Right? Wrong! Source: None
But if you read the actual article, it becomes clear that cities have now become just as safe as villages due to the drop in crime. Some old fashioned good news, dressed up as bad news.
Read beyond the end of one’s nose But if you read the actual article, it becomes clear that cities have now become just as safe as villages due to the drop in crime. Some old fashioned good news, dressed up as bad news. Source: None

What’s wrong with our Media

Obviously Metro and the Sun are no exceptions. There definitely is something wrong with our media. We wrote about that before.

At BrightVibes we do our best to inspire our audience and contribute positively. Below you find a couple of links to sites that inspire us. Of course there are many more and we would love to hear which Media inspire you. 

Make an Impact

GOOD news sells

Did you know that Aplus.com and Upworthy.com jointly have about 80M users per month? Who says good news doesn't work??