Why are headlines contradicting each other so much?
It’s a strange world – the world of writing for a newspaper or journal. First there’s your youthful enthusiasm for ‘the truth’, then there’s your editor banging on the table – or more likely your PC – demanding more column inches – NOW! So what’s a poor hack to do?
Well of course we cheat! As a breed we develop the skill of laziness very quickly. Fortunately, for us there’s a whole other industry that’s grown up to feed us big fat servings of news – of course I’m referring to the PR industry. Without PR and its vested interests we’d have to get off our comfy chairs and wear out the leather on our shoes and find the darn news.
However, here at The Business News Source we’ve adopted the, admittedly less than scientific, approach of ‘Headline Counting’ to look for trends in the news as they move from the inside pages slowly towards the front page. Ever wondered how you seem to have heard all the arguments before, well it was probably that page 6 two-inch column article two weeks back, fed by a PR Agency on a quite news day – innocuously, but slowly building momentum.
In most cases the headlines follow the same pattern as the markets, in times of great uncertainty the headline subject matters exhibit great volatility, with contradictions abounding from day to day. As soon as a consensus appears then its all good news (or bad news), until the new top (or bottom) of the headline market is found.
For this very reason (amongst the more obvious analytical ones) we are strengthened in our conviction of the impending correction in the housing market and further corrections in the stock market – headlines are creeping out of the inside pages, and everyone has an oppinion.
As a final footnote – we are looking for volunteers to help contribute to the ‘headline watching’ program – simply, we would like our volunteers to note down the article by subject/date and whether it’s a positive or negative headline for USA, UK and Australia – on the topics of interest rates, stock market and the housing market in your region.
We then intend to publish a bi-monthly summary of the headlines – no we won’t be calling it headlinedaq though!
Please email the the_editor@invbiznews.com to help