• Darkard@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Why is written ‘harming’ in single quotes? Is this some opinion that someone has had that they are publishing as fact?

    The government is just holding out in the hope that public opinion on the strikes turns on their favour or that the nurses run out of savings to keep striking.

    • Striker@lemmy.worldOPM
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      1 year ago

      In my opinion I think quotes in general should be banned from being headlines. It’s been abused as a tactic for making inflammatory headlines with little factual basis under the technicality it just being the words of someone else.

    • lanigerous@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      It’ll be paraphrased from something a Tory said and I suspect the quotes cover the “paper” from libel since they can then claim it was opinion rather than fact

    • Djehngo@lemmyrs.org
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      1 year ago

      I read a while back that it’s to insulate the paper from any potential defamation lawsuits, the quotes are there to ensure the difference between “we believe the strikes are harming patients also this person says they must stop” and “this person believes the strikes are harming patients and also says they must stop”

      It’s actually very common practice in the UK, most headlines make use of quotations to endorse a position by means of quoting an opinion and providing context to that opinion.

      In this specific case it is of course bullshit, the language of the headline is deliberately worded to incite anger against the healthcare professionals and the quotes are added to preserve the emotive qualities of the headline when read by the layperson while insulating the paper from legal risk.