After US President Donald Trump announced the death of Islamic State chief Al-Baghdadi’s death, online media erupted in cheers and applauded the US military force for finally putting an end to the terrorist.
Soon after the announcement, the Washington Post published an obituary for Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed ISIS leader. What didn’t go well was the Post’s chosen headline.
The Post’s headline called Baghdadi, an “austere religious scholar”. The highly optimistic view given to the life of a mass murderer brought them a lot of flack online.
Washington Post had a tough time calling the man responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people across the globe as who he was, a terrorist leader. The obituary’s initial headline was alright, the headline labeled the dead man right, “terrorist-in-chief.” No one knows why or who had the thought of rewriting a perfectly alright headline as a sympathizing statement for the violence loving terror outfit’s leader.
Washington Post expressed regret about the heading and its spokeswoman Kris Coratti told CNN: "Post correspondents have spent years in Iraq and Syria documenting ISIS savagery, often at great personal risk. Unfortunately, a headline written in haste to portray the origins of al-Baghdadi and ISIS didn't communicate that brutality. The headline was promptly changed."
The Post was picked on by Netizens across the world. It also gave enough spotlight for Trump supporters to crack down on the website. Netizens also came up with their versions of inappropriately optimistic obituary headlines for many other problematic individuals from history and fictional villains.
