Down the Guardian path...

I don't remember if misleading headlines were quite such a part of mainstream newspapers when I was I worked as a sub-editor. Today Facebook highlighted a post from the Guardian which said that Usain Bolt might be stripped of an Olympic gold medal. This was so shocking that I went straight to the Guardian website to see if it was a real news item (simply because I like the Bolt, dammit, and I did not want this to be real, and I was hoping to NOT find anything in the Guardian!). But there it was, the news item.

However... it turned out, on reading past the headline, that the gold medal in question was the one from the 400m relay in the Beijing Olympics, not the current one. On reading a little further still, it turned out that someone in the Bolt's team had failed a drugs test, not the Bolt himself. And if that person was stripped of his gold medal, then it followed that the entire team would forfeit their gold medals too - and that was the only way Usain would have been "stripped" of any of his gold medals in any Olympics so far. Yet the Guardian - supposedly a mainstream broadsheet and not merely a shamelessly unethical tabloid - made it seem like Usain Bolt had failed a drugs test personally! 

I LOATHE being taken in by lying bastard headlines approved by some faceless little worm who is obviously a poor excuse for an editor and has never heard of journalistic ethics. Yes, I understand the concept of clickbait, and I normally stay away from shit like that especially if it's from the Sun or the Daily Mail or other unethical tabloid but - like I said - this was about Usain Bolt, people! 

I can only say that The Guardian is pretty much the UK's Times of India.