I don’t know anything about the intricacies of publishing a newspaper, or about the relationships or sequence and timing between the on-line and printed versions of a major newspaper such as the New York Times.
Although I am not a journalist, I remember from my Journalism 101 class that newspapers pay a lot of attention to their headlines—to every word and every punctuation mark.
I am mentioning this because a funny thing happened on my way to reacting to a recent New York Times article and headlines—plural.
Early in the morning of December 2, after president Obama’s West Point address on Afghanistan, I visited the New York Times on-line edition to read their top story, “Obama Adds Troops, but Maps Exit Plan.”
I found the Times report on Obama’s speech quite objective, but I had problems with their headline.
So, I quickly fired a letter to the Editors expressing my objections:
To the Editor:
Re: “Obama Adds Troops, but Maps Exit Plan,” December 2, 2009
Kudos for an objective initial report on the president’s address to the nation on Afghanistan, but for one thing: The “but” in your title, “Obama Adds Troops, but Maps Exit Plan.”
What is wrong with an exit strategy?
You are beginning to sound like Mr. Cheney who never had one for Iraq, or like Senator McCain who never met an exit strategy he liked.
Hopefully, we have learned from Iraq that open-ended, endless, unconditional commitments to military operations abroad are just that: bottomless pits that will consume our resources—blood and treasure— and sap our national psyche, confidence and unity.
What is wrong with sending the enemy the unmistakable message that we intend to “finish the job” victoriously—and quickly.
My letter was not published. However, there were several letters published today that referred to “Obama Speeds Troops and Vows to Start Pullout in 2011,” the headline in the December 2 printed version of the Times story.
Perhaps I am too nitpicky, oversensitive, or semantically challenged, but I feel there is a big difference in tone—and perhaps even in substance—between the two headlines.
First, the “but Maps Exit Plan” was changed to “and vows to Start Pullout in 2011,” or vice-versa, depending on the schedules of the on-line and printed versions.
The “but” in the “but Maps Exit Plan” part of the on-line headline connotes, in my opinion, a certain sense of discord with the “Obama Adds troops” part.
Then there is the difference between “Obama Adds troops” and “Obama Speeds Troops.” But as it turned out, Obama is doing both.
Perhaps there is no dark significance at all in any of the headline changes.
Perhaps newspapers do that routinely.
Perhaps I am just paranoid because the Times did not print my letter.
However, if the Times did intend to imply some kind of nuanced disapproval of the president’s “mapping an exit plan,” I stand by my unpublished letter.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.