The Hill falsely spun a headline to undermine President Trump, which underscores how the mainstream media manipulates public opinion against the president.
The newspaper, which routinely attacks Trump through the guise of objective journalism, published a story entitled Putin warns N. Korea could lead to global catastrophe, but then later changed the headline to Putin urges Trump to avoid hysteria on North Korea.
The headline change is odd – and downright misleading – because Putin made a statement about the North Korea crisis that wasn’t necessarily directed at Trump, but rather “all of the parties” involved in the conflict.
“All of the parties involved in this process including North Korea… we need to help everybody feel secure and not be afraid of being destroyed,” Putin told journalists in China, according to one translator. “All of the parties in this conflict should be willing to [compromise].”
“In this situation, under these circumstances, it doesn’t make any sense to talk about military action and increase tensions.”
“…So promoting a military solution will not produce anything good… this can cause a huge catastrophe and a massive loss of life,” he added. “There is no alternative to peaceful diplomatic resolution of the North Korean issue.”
Here’s how RT, the original source of the story, reported it:
Pyongyang will not relinquish its military program under pressure of sanctions and military threats, because the examples of Iraq and Libya have convinced it that nuclear deterrence is the only credible way to ensure its security, President Putin told journalists on Tuesday.
“Ramping up military hysteria in such conditions is senseless; it’s a dead end,” he added. “It could lead to a global, planetary catastrophe and a huge loss of human life. There is no other way to solve the North Korean nuclear issue, save that of peaceful dialogue.”
The minor disparities between the quotes are due to different translators interpreting Putin, but the variances are too minor to explain The Hill‘s new, misleading headline.
The Hill’s original headline, Putin Warns N. Korea Could Lead to Global Catastrophe, is much more accurate and is still shown in the story’s URL at the time of this writing.
In comparison, the RT article never mentioned Trump – and ran the story under the headline Putin: Military hysteria over N. Korea may lead to planetary catastrophe, heavy loss of life.
The Guardian also ran a similar headline for its own story on Putin’s speech, which barely mentions Trump at all, further emphasizing how The Hill bent the truth by changing its headline to smear the president.
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