Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Headlining is obviously an art CNN doesn't get


This comes from the CNN homepage under the sidebar "MORE STORIES":

Cheney cleared in hunting accident
If one wasn't inclined to want to know more, this could easily get passed by. Of course he got cleared - he's white, rich and powerful. The truth is, once you actually click the link, THIS is the headline:

Hunter shot by Cheney has 'minor heart attack'
Is it just me or is there something of a mismatch here? The story goes on:

"Some of the bird shot appears to have moved and lodged into part of his heart ... in what we would say is a minor heart attack," said Peter Banko, administrator at Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial.
I don't know how many of our readers are medical professionals but something doesn't ring true here. The clapper keeps hitting the bell hard and I can't figure it out.

Doctors were deciding how to treat Whittington's condition, which was discovered after doctors noticed an irregularity in his heartbeat, Banko said.
Again, this bugs me. If Whittington was simply "peppered" the protocol would be to remove the pieces of shot, treat the wounds, ease the pain and treat for infection.

But that's not happenning. Whittington is in intensive care and is having asymptomatic heart attacks. Some of the shot penetrated far enough into Whittington body to affect vital organs. That's "peppered"?!!

OK, CNN, you call it peppered, I'll call it what it is - a near fatal gunshot wound. I am intimately aware that chunks of metal migrating through one's body can create more than just an inconvenient moment of irritation.

Whittington isn't out of danger and Cheney isn't out of the woods yet.

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