The Mistakes Of Headline and Copywriting

It's funny how meaning is made and how it relies on the correct context. The BBC science and nature website link headline of 6th May 2011 read Mass culling 'may be unnecessary'

I thought immediately that Richard Dawkins had perhaps made a U Turn. The idea that either the religious act itself was deemed necessary for culling or that the people who attended them needed culling seemed like a very extreme idea indeed.

Now recognising that there is always a 'hidden agenda' and that I do not suffer from 'critico-deductive minimilisitis' or gullibility as it is termed in psychology circles, I reckon a bored copywriter at the BBC knew exactly what they were doing. It worked, because I then went on to read the article, which is further proof of Eagly and Chaiken's dual process model of information processing.