And I’m startled by the insistence that because one possible interpretation of a headline would be inaccurate that the headline writer is engaging in some kind of outrageous assault on the dignity of a murder victim.
If you argue that they wrote the headline that way to lure people to read the story then they, in a small way, did.
If you argue that they wrote that headline unaware of the ambiguities and implications, then they didn’t.
I’m just arguing that as a headline representing a factual story, it is bad regardless of why it was written that way.
Me too. I’ve got a lot of respect for Marley23, but I think he’s wrong in suggesting that because it’s a headline writer’s job to write attention-grabbing headlines, it’s OK for them to write a headline like this that buys into a killer’s otherwise unsupported story about how the death he caused was really just a tragic accident.
In the words of Mellencamp:
Calling it your job, old hoss, sure don’t make it right
But if you want me to, I’ll say a prayer for your soul tonight.
Too many people here have the impression that ‘staged’ means faked or phony. It doesn’t. It means performed’ or planned and carried out (see definition 3 of the verb form). When a theater does Romeo and Juliet they aren’t staging a double suicide, they are staging a play. If someone stages a robbery they actually commit a robbery. If someone stages a murder someone actually dies (unless the perpetrators fail).
Look we all know “staged” can mean “put on, performed, or conducted,” as in “Special Ops staged on raid on the terror cell’s compound.”
But in the context of describing criminal activity, it tends to suggest that the crime is not what it appears to be. “The defendant staged a robbery to suggest that the killer was an unknown assailant” or “the defendant staged a ransom drop in order to transfer the funds to her confederate.” Here, staged suggests that those seeming crimes are not what they first appear to be.
Here, that is not the case. Whatever subjective thoughts the accused had (“I plan to kidnap her without her foreknowledge, but not, you know, really kidnap her”) is immaterial. What took place was not an artificial kidnapping but a real kidnapping, as we all agree.
One point that might draw out why the use of the word staged here is problematic is this. The accused is saying he “staged” the kidnapping, in the sense of Definition 1, “execute as an artifice.” So it seems like bad writing to have to say, as we must if we want to be clear, “He didn’t ‘stage (d1)’ a kidnapping; he ‘staged (d3)’ a kidnapping.”
Right, if a term has two meanings, one of which is somewhat more specialized and commonly encountered in a limited set of contexts and a second more general meaning, then it promotes confusion to use the word with its more general connotation in one of those special contexts, where the more specialized connotation is used.
That’s why Lohan’s line in Mean Girls — “I know it looks like I was being a bitch, but that’s only because I was acting like a bitch” — is funny. Yes, acting can mean “performing a role or behaving in some dissimulating way, like an theater actor.” It also means “to engage in a type of a behavior.” The joke, of course, is the Lohan’s character means the former definition, but in this context, the latter definition is the more conventional connotation.
If ‘staged’ can be used to describe anything planned and actually done, it sort of doesn’t mean anything.
Sure it does. It wasn’t spontaneous; we know that. It was part of a bizarre scheme, larger than an ordinary abduction. That’s certainly true.
The idiot may have felt he was just “acting” like a kidnapper, but I bet his victim felt really kidnapped. Before she died.
Personally, I don’t think it was bizarre or anything. I think it was a regular old kidnapping and rape, and she died and he’s a liar. I still don’t understand why his story has any credibility with anyone.
As stated above, the cops apparently think it might be true. And it’s a fair assumption for now that they have good reasons to think so.
I didn’t say anyone needed to do it. You don’t need to write a better headline to earn the ability to criticize theirs. I asked if anyone wanted to give it a shot and several people offered quality alternatives.
I never said that. Acsenray sort of implied it and I thought about arguing with him on that point. I didn’t, but even though a headline’s main purpose is to get your attention, it still has to be factual. My opinion was that the headline is not inaccurate. And I’ll admit here that I thought the police accepted the killer’s story about the kidnapping and fake rescue. After looking at the affidavit I can see that they don’t- they’re just saying that’s his side of the story. In that case the headlines should really have attribution.
OK, my apologies then for misinterpreting you. And I’m glad to see we agree on that last statement.
First, nice strawman. Second, it’s not just one possible interpretation. It’s the usual one, the one 95% of people will make. Because, otherwise, the term "staged’ is unnecessary, and titles are supposed to be as short as possible while still being factually correct.
Just because the words can technically be considered accurate individually or in a context other than a headline doesn’t mean they aren’t misleading. And, while I’d agree that it’s a silly thing to make a pit thread over, a large number of pit threads are similarly silly. It doesn’t make the OP wrong.
And, yes, the bigger issue is that the headline writers are apparently taking the guy’s word for what happened. Even with the unfortunate wording, why not have the second part be “claims hostage death [was] accidental”?
If he had set a house on fire, so he could play hero and “save” a bunch of children, and they end up burned to death, he would also be guilty of murder. And arson.
If he sank a boat with a family on it so he could save them, and they drowned, it’s the same story.
“IDIOT COMMITS CRIME TO LOOK LIKE HERO, ENDS UP KILLING AN INNOCENT GIRL, THEN HIDES THE EVIDENCE”
By framing it like he “staged” a crime and he only wanted to be a hero, they are twisting perceptions, which is wrong since nobody actually knows what really happened. Except he duped and scared a 15 year old girl, violently assaulted her, put tape over her mouth and let her die in fear and agony while he drove along a road at night.
Then stripped her naked and left her dead in the woods while he threw away her clothes.
A real fucking hero.
Slight tangent, but semi-relevant: This pretty much just what Luis Marin was accused of after a 1980 fire in a conference center killed 26 people (including my father). He had been a busboy in the restaurant, was let go due to some immigration status paperwork problem, and was close to the source of the fire when it started. The prosecutors came up with the “save people and be a hero, and get my job back” motive, but without much evidence.
(The case was unusual in that he was found guilty by the jury, but the verdict was set aside by the judge due to insufficient evidence…rightly so, from what I can tell…but that’s another story.)
There’s also the Paul Camiolo case: arrested for arson and the murder of his parents due to a pour pattern containing gasoline being found on the hardwood floor. Camiolo was cleared when gasoline was not found in the carpet above the pour pattern and the gasoline in the wood tested positive for lead. Even so, some authories are still doubting his story.