'Donald Trumps Death', Times Of India Headline Invites Mixed Reactions

Mumbai: As the world was taken by a shock after former US President and Republican candidate for the 2024 Presidential elections dodged death after escaping an assassination attempt during a rally in Pennsylvania, Times Of India's headline to its front page article narrating the news story has taken the social media by a storm. The headline to the front page article carrying the news said- 'Donald Trumps Death'. In the headline, the writer has used the word 'Trumps' as a verb, which means that Donald has escaped or trumped death. The smartly coined headline actually meant that Donald Trump escapes death or dodges death. However, several readers misunderstood the headline in many ways.

Misconceptions of readers

Several readers thought that the writer missed an apostrophe -punctuation mark and made a grammatical mistake leading to fake news being circulated that Donald Trump had died. Some actually thought that the news publication had published wrong facts. While many others who understood the hidden meaning lauded the witty application of language skills to communicate the news in a creative way. Many other opined that a news must be communicated in the simplest way so that everyone understands it rather than defeating the purpose of writing news by going out of the way to have creative headlines.

Editors often use catchy headlines to draw readers' attention without distorting facts in any way to narrate a news story most effectively. A catchy headline to an article contains elements to persuade readers to read it. Writing an effective headline is one of the most essential elements in news.

Mixed reactions flowed in for the Times Of India headline, even world media took note of it. Some lauded, while some criticised, but no one could ignore the headline that the national daily newspaper had printed.

Here are some reactions

@BesuraTaansane said, "Most people missed the play on words in this wonderful headline (For a change by TOI-let paper) It says "Donald Trumps Death" (Trumps = Defeats) So please spare the outrage for once."

@LalitaRawat_07 said, "The Times of India are you really Serious".

@prashantpale24says, "Nothing is wrong in this headline of #timesofindia it's Donald Trumps Death in which Trump means Win so please."

@BesuraTaansane said, "Most people missed the play on words in this wonderful headline (For a change by TOI-let paper) It says "Donald Trumps Death" (Trumps = Defeats) So please spare the outrage for once."

Reports said that 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to kill former US president Donald Trump during his rally in Pennsylvania. Even a day after his assassination attempt, it was still not clear why he targeted Trump. Law enforcement authorities in the US have not yet found any manifesto Crooks left behind, something that would throw light on why he was so angry at Trump. The only facts that have come to light are that he was a loner and was bullied extensively in school as a child.