Dr Mumbo was certainly startled by a headline that popped up on the SMH website this afternoon.
SMH: Masked terror?
Naturally the bait got him clicking. So when he actually read the story, he was relieved that the whole thing was just a training exercise organised by the police.
He did, however, feel slightly like he’s been tricked.
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Luckily, so did somebody on Darling Island.
Two minutes later, the article had become a fun little mystery instead.
Can you guess why? Have fun…
And it stayed that way for another seven minutes, until somebody asked themselves whether that approach was in the best of taste either.
Leading to a final, somewhat truthier, evolution of the headline.
Reality headline writing
And while Dr Mumbo is critiquing today’s SMH front page choices, notice anything, erm, a little dated about the image illustrating the telco complaints story on the right?
1982 called. It wanted its image library back
The stock footage of fax machines, telegrams and Telex apparatus were presumably unavailable.