Misleading headlines are a form of rape

Is the headline of this very post misleading? Interesting question, that. Very meta. Read what I have to say and come to your own conclusions.

Page Six (a Murdoch publication) yesterday gave us the following:

A very damning headline -- until you read the entire text. It turns out that Al Franken (then a comedian) and Arianna Huffington were doing a bit, that the whole thing was staged, that both were aware of what was going on, and that Arianna considers any allegation of impropriety absurd.

The Page Six story nevertheless quotes an unnamed source, allegedly present on that day, who offers some dubious anti-Franken commentary, and who pretends to know what Arianna was really thinking. Frankly, this quotation sounds like the sort of "kayfabe" we might expect from Steve Bannon or Roger Stone. It seems that anonymous sourcing is perfectly fine when right-wing writers do it. I suspect that this Page Six writer placed a fictional quote into her text in order to make Franken look bad, because there is absolutely no logical reason for this putative source not to divulge his or her name.

Today, Arianna tweeted:

I think I’m a better judge of how I felt in that satirical photo shoot with Al Franken than the recollections of an anonymous bystander. I thought the point of this moment was to believe women’s accounts of their own experiences.

I don't normally praise Arianna Huffington, but I'm glad she wrote these words. Perhaps she will now explain why she didn't adopt the same respectful attitude toward the accounts offered by Susan McDougal and (especially) Julie Hiatt Steele, during the era of the Great Bill Clinton Smear Campaign. Arianna, a rightwinger at that time, was one of the more prolific smearers. 

Today, as in the 1990s, women are to be believed ONLY WHEN THEY SAY SOMETHING INJURIOUS TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

That's the rule. That's the law. That's the way this "moment" is being handled.

This latest smear attempt reminded me of an earlier example of "headline rape," discussed in this previous post.

In my earlier piece, I asked: "Does this shit happen to any candidate NOT named Clinton?" We now know that it also happens to senators named Franken.

You had to read the entire Daily Mail article to understand that Hillary did not keep the jewelry. The law prohibits all government employees from keeping gifts worth more than $300. (You already knew this fact if you're a West Wing fan.) When foreign leaders insist on making such gifts -- and they do -- diplomacy prohibits a refusal. The General Services Administration takes charge of these items and either sells them or donates them to a good cause.

In both Franken and Clinton cases, the intention behind these "rapey" headlines is to mislead the lazy. Many people don't bother to read the entire story. Only the headline registers in their minds.

In the interest of fairness, let's look at an instance in which a Republican became a victim of "headline rape." The following comes from a pro-atheism website:

The headline gives the impression that the guy was bringing in busloads of nine-year-olds to service decadent elitists at hideous orgies. The facts of the matter are quite different. Basically, Shortey met a 17 year-old male online and wanted to pay to have sex with him, so they arranged to meet at a motel. That's it.

That's not a pretty story. Nobody can deny Shortey's hypocrisy.

That said, I would note that Ohio law is maddeningly vague. The age of consent in Ohio is 16, but only for heterosexual contact. Technically, there are still laws on the books in that state making all gay sex illegal. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled such laws unconstitutional if two adults are involved, but the Supreme Court does not stipulate the age at which adulthood begins. That decision is left up to the states -- and Ohio has yet to pass a law setting the age of consent for homosexual activity, because all gay sex remains technically illegal, even though the Supreme Court has ruled that...

...and round and round we go.

If you agree with my position that the age of consent should be the same for both heterosexual sex and homosexual sex, then all this talk of "child trafficking" is worse than misleading. It's ridiculous.

(That said, I think 16 is too low. Sixteen also happens to be the age of consent here in Maryland, and I wish I could change that.)

Shortey -- the alleged "child trafficker" -- is really only guilty of violating the prostitution statutes. I'm not saying that it is admirable or acceptable for a "family values" state senator to pay for sex. I'm saying that the headline gives the impression that he was running some sort of pedophile sex ring, which is simply not the case.

So let's return to my headline: "Misleading headlines are a form of rape." Is my own headline misleading? Did I just "rape" you? If your answer is no, then the question becomes: What can we do about "rapists" in the media?