List of erroneous newspaper headlines

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a list of newspaper headlines which report events as having occurred which did not in fact occur. It does not include predictions which did not come true.

This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy certain standards for completeness.

Revisions and sourced additions are welcome.

• "Passengers Safely Moved and Steamer Titanic Taken In Tow" (April 15, 1912). The Christian Science Monitor reported not only that all aboard the Titanic had been saved, but that the ship had not even gone down. "Officials of White Star Company Confident Steamer is Unsinkable and Will Float until Halifax is Reached," read a subheadline. ^[1]
• "Hughes Sweeps Country as the Election Winner" (November 7, 1916) Extra editions in many papers reported that Charles Evans Hughes had won the 1916 presidential election over President Woodrow Wilson, including the New York Herald, the Chicago Herald and even The New York Times. ^[2]
• "Dewey Defeats Truman" (November 3, 1948).
• "JFK Raps Fault-Finders In Nation" (November 22, 1963). Early editions of afternoon newspapers carried an AP report of a speech that President John F. Kennedy had made in Dallas that day against opponents who "confuse rhetoric with reality". The article had been based on the text of the speech that Kennedy had prepared to make at the Dallas Trade Mart. Later editions reported that Kennedy had been assassinated while on the way to make the speech. ^[3]
• "Ford reportedly accepts No. 2 spot on GOP ticket" (July 17, 1980) The Washington Post and other newspapers carrying the Post story by David S. Broder and Lou Cannon reported that former President (and Vice-President) Gerald R. Ford had accepted an offer to serve as Ronald Reagan's running mate at the GOP convention in Detroit. ^[4] Subsequent editions reflected that Reagan's primary opponent, George H. W. Bush, became the running mate after the deal with Ford fell through.^[5] One Washington analyst changed the lead of a premature political obituary from "George Bush lost another war last night," to "George Bush finally won a war early this morning.^[6][7]
• "Congressman's Flight Reportedly Forced to Soviet Isle" (September 1, 1983) An early UPI report from Seoul stated that "A Korean Air Lines jumbo jet flying from New York to Seoul Wednesday with 269 people aboard, including a U.S. Congressman, was forced to land on Sakhalin, a Soviet-occupied island north of Japan, the government-run television said. The passengers were reported safe. Among them was Rep. Larry McDonald, D-GA., John Birch society chairman, whose spokesman said in Washington that American officials believed the jet was forced down by Soviet or North Korean fighter planes." Tragically, the fate of KAL 007 was that it had been shot down and that all 269 persons onboard were killed. ^[8]
• "Kerry's Choice: Dem picks Gephardt as VP candidate" (July 6, 2004) The New York Post erroneously stated that U.S. Presidential candidate John Kerry had chosen Dick Gephardt as his running mate, when in fact he had chosen John Edwards.^[9]
• "'Alive!' Miners beat odds" (January 4, 2006) USA Today, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and other newspapers based headlines on erroneous reports that 12 out of the 13 trapped coal miners survived the Sago Mine disaster, and CNN and Fox News had broadcast what turned out to be a miscommunication. In reality, 12 out of the 13 miners did not survive the incident.

[edit] See also

• List of premature obituaries

[edit] References