“Man who shot Pope about to be released”

This is the headline for a story on CNN, but its also playing in all the media outlets. What’s wrong with this?

Well, as it turns out, the man, Mehmet Ali Agca, is not being freed from prison for shooting the Pope. He served 20 years for that in Italy, and was released to Turkey (to serve a sentence for a different crime) 4 1/2 years ago.

The only thing that seems to make this “news” is the headline itself. What does it mean when the media “creates” news by proper working of the headline?

1/12/2006 9:20:28 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [0]  general | world affairs