Why Headlines Matter

I was browsing MSNBC tonight trying to stay up to date on goings on from around the world (well, at least the stuff that my Twitter feed hasn’t taught me already), when I saw this headline in the Science section:

In case you can't see it, the headline reads "Newly discovered legless amphibians are horrifying"

Ahh, nothing like some mainstream media-endorsed fear mongering to make people care about an at-risk animal! The amphibian being referenced is actually a really neat new family of Caecilian, legless amphibians which live underground and, in this case, look like earthworms with backbones.

Photo by SD Biju, linked from MSNBC article

The cruel irony is the author (who I’m going to assume didn’t write the headline) finishes off the story by saying:

The habitat of these bizarre animals is under threat, as farming takes over forest land in northeast India, according to the University of Delhi. Although caecilians are harmless, local lore has it that they are incredibly venomous snakes, another factor that threatens these mysterious, secretive creatures.

How exactly are we supposed to get the public to become interested in an at-risk new species when we set them up with negative opinions from the get go? Instead of sharing a fascinating new species that doesn’t conform to most people’s idea of what an amphibian is, and encouraging them to ask questions like “Wow, why does that animal look that way?” or “How is that a relative of frogs?”, MSNBC has instead promoted the ‘ick-factor’ and reinforced that if something looks different it should be feared. Maybe this type of headline will get a lot of people to click on the link, but how many will actually read the story and learn about their cool biology rather than just looking at the photo and agreeing with the headline? When the natural world coughs up an amazing story it’s maddening to see it trashed and slandered like this!

Of course, at least MSNBC knows that scientific family names like Chikilidae are always capitalized, unlike the CBC…

Update: It seems MSNBC syndicated this story and headline from LiveScience. Perhaps the headline was proposed by the author after all…