Friday, June 22, 2007

Curious court reporting

When things get to court, it's because two sides have different takes on events; as a result, the legal team representing side a will always suggest side b is lying; likewise, side b will be paying representatives to suggest that side a is lying.

Which makes it curious that The Sun has chosen to headline the unsurprising suggestion by counsel for Jay Kaycappa that Heather Mills isn't telling the truth about his alleged attack on her:

Mucca 'lied' over photographer

Why, it's almost as if the sister paper of the News of the World had a reason to focus on the suggestion that Mills would lie under oath in a court of law above anything else, isn't it?

The other really jarring note in the report is when the paper describes Mills as "the Mum of one" - eh? Obviously, that's factually accurate - which is in itself a surprise - but a slightly odd way of describing her nevertheless.

Kaycappa is accused of common assault; the case continues.


2 comments:

Billy Ruffian said...

In Andrew Marr's book on journalism, he makes the point that if a word in a headline is in inverted commas, its almost always untrue or misleading.

Also, whenever a headline is posed as a question, the answer will be 'no'.

Anonymous said...

Did he also mention that if a headline in the Sun begins with the words "Now It's", the rest of the headline will be a soul-crushingly weak pun on the name of the person the story is about? e.g. an article about an actor's daughter buying underwear will be headlined "Now It's Frilly Allen", a story on a jailed socialite dating a rotting corpse will be "Now It's Paris Piltdown"

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