GOP senator boasted about her family's self-reliance received $460K in federal subsidies

[anon68952647]

@anon50609448

Could it be that Cory’s secret motive was that he loves watching pedants get squeamish about his headlines?

He might be going for that. This seems more likely though:

[bwv812]

@anon50609448

Since reading the headline and walking away without reading the story doesn’t substantially mislead and reading the headline with the story doesn’t mislead.

Something that is false does mislead. Saying someone personally benefited does mislead. You may not care, and you may not think there’s much of a difference. But there is a very real and substantial difference in the choices one makes and the choice’s one’s relatives make.

@anon50609448

Anyone interested in reading about a GOP senator’s hypocrisy is getting their fill of that from the facts of the story.

There’s no hypocrisy in believing in self sufficiency and having relatives that don’t. Are you a hypocrite for being pro-choice when your grandfather is anti-abortion?

@anon50609448

‘Headline doesn’t match story’ is the essential complaint of clickbait - the point of the deception is to get people to read a story they might not have been interested in otherwise, the reader feels tricked.

Clickbait titles tend not to be objectively false, as they usually just exaggerate through the liberal use of inherently subjective words.

But even if this is the essential component of clickbait, it doesn’t mean that that clickbait is the only lens we should interpret such situations through. You think you can’t libel someone through a headline? You think that lies in headlines should, at worst, be considered clickbait? You think my hypothetical headline earlier was simply clickbait? You think that the reason Google complained about a headline being “patently false” is because they were worried about clickbait?

[anon50609448]

@bwv812

There’s no hypocrisy in believing in self sufficiency and having relatives that don’t. Are you a hypocrite for being pro-choice when your grandfather is anti-abortion?

I’d be a hypocrite if I boasted of my family’s great virtue on the issue? I’m pretty sure I’ve said three or four times already that, had she distanced herself from relatives that took subsidies, she would show no hypocrisy, but boasting of her family’s self reliance opens her to criticism based on her family’s actions. She is 100% free to disavow those actions herself (or to say she is “philosophically opposed” to the program but that it should continue) and avail herself of the “I didn’t actually do that” defense (if she didn’t, I mean 1995 and all), but instead she’s chosen the “I come from a righteous family” line and I’ll judge her by that.

@bwv812

But even if this is the essential component of clickbait, it doesn’t mean that that clickbait is the only lens we should interpret such situations through.

I’ve offered three lenses:

1. Does the headline mislead people who read it and not the story
2. Does the headline, when coupled with the content of the story, mislead
3. Does the headline mislead people into reading the story when they wouldn’t have otherwise

Your hypothetical libelous headline would violate 2. Your google example would be an issue for 1 (if the headline was in fact misleading, which I’m not sure it was - though that’s not the point here). 3 is clickbait.

Why are we discussing this? It’s because we’re talking about plausible motives that would allow us to believe that Cory wrote that headline with the intention to mislead readers into thinking that Ersnt personally took $460k in subsidies. The motive you appear to be positing is misleading for misleading’s sake (since all possible motives you’ve offered have been entirely abstract), which, if true, brings me back to my hypothesis that the point of the headline was manage to successfully communicate the information readers would need from it while being wrong enough to get you (and a few others) angry because it’s amusing to Cory. If this was his intent, I congratulate him - such a headline is not always easy to craft.

The idea that some political end could be accomplished that is not accomplished by the story itself or by a slightly modified headline that meets your criteria just doesn’t scan. There’s a reason why I asked, in a previous post, how the world would be different with a different headline. It’s because if the differences don’t make it out of pendant land and into the real world then the idea that it was done for political gain is far-fetched.

@bwv812

Something that is false does mislead.

Not even remotely true. People say false things without misleading anyone all the time. But I think that’s kind of not the point. Clearly you and others were misled by the headline, so there is no question as to whether the headline has the potential to mislead people.

[bwv812]

@anon50609448

I’m pretty sure I’ve said three or four times already that, had she distanced herself from relatives that took subsidies, she would show no hypocrisy, but boasting of her family’s self reliance opens her to criticism based on her family’s actions.

At worst, I think her proclamations of self-reliance are limited to her parents. Talking about how you grew up in a self-reliant household really doesn’t say much about what your grown brother does or your grandfather does. And she may be wrong about whether her parents were self-reliant when she was growing up (although she may also be right), but it’s fairly likely she had no idea whether her parents were receiving subsidies or how large those subsidies were.

@anon50609448

Your hypothetical libelous headline would violate 2. Your google example would be an issue for 1 (if the headline was in fact misleading, which I’m not sure it was - though that’s not the point here).

Well, this is clearly misleading in sense #1.

@anon50609448

The motive you appear to be positing is misleading for misleading’s sake (since all possible motives you’ve offered have been entirely abstract)

What would be a non-abstract motive? I’ve said that personally accepting $460k would make Ernst hypocritical in a way that having relatives accepting the money would not be, and we’ve established that even conflict-of-interest laws would view the situation differently. If this is too abstract a motive, I don’t know what you would consider a concrete motive.