Contrast these two headlines, both above stories detailing the group Truckers and Citizens of America‘s protest convoy to the U.S. Capitol Tuesday, Sept. 23:
“Trucker Protest Runs Out of Gas” –at the website of third-party-logistics focused magazine Traffic World
and
“Truckers Come Together to Protest Fuel Prices” –at the website of the Washington Post
While both stories are pretty even-handed, the headline of the first goes a little farther than just basic description of the story’s contents. To the credit of Traffic World, while the protest group had announced an expected 200 trucks and truckers to be participating, only a reported 20 were there in the end, and the organizers blamed the very situation they were protesting — high fuel prices and subsequent financial strain on independent owner-operators and the industry in general — for the low turnout. But if the headline were meant to be descriptive, it’s probably OK for us to expect a transport-focused magazine to get the fuel utilized by big trucks right, don’t you think? Last time I checked, most all big trucks ran on diesel.
