Is it OK to lie in the headline if you sorta put the truth in the story?
The AP just published a story with the deeply misleading headline: AP Poll: Americans approve of drone strikes on terrorists.
While the AP did get a decent-sized majority to agree to the questions they asked, those questions were apparently about a drone program someone fantasized, and not about the one we actually have. Even in the same story (well-buried below the fold), the reporters admit:
The poll did not include questions about foreign civilian casualties or about public confidence in the government’s assertion that the vast majority of those killed in drone strikes are terrorists. Independent groups have estimated that at least hundreds, and possibly thousands, of noncombatants have been killed in the operations, a count the U.S. government disputes.
Drone skeptics say most polls on the subject frame the question with the assumption that those targeted are terrorists, when it’s not clear that is always the case.
Every time we read about the actual victims of a drone strike, there seems to be between zero and two people we can say arguably can now be called ex-terrorists, plus up to five dozen bystanders who were just attending a wedding or a funeral or a wedding that instantly transformed into a funeral... you know... s* happens.
The poetically-named Hellfire missile does not seem to be a weapon that can be targeted with much accuracy yet.
Do you read The Intercept yet? You might want to consider that.