In my search for editing topics I turned to Professor Keith's suggestion of Poynter.org's Romanesko's blog. While searching through the topics, I came across a poor decision that crossed the New York Times' copy desk a couple of weeks ago. The New York Times was reporting on how the Central Intelligence Agency destroyed interrogation tapes in 2005 and how the "White House" may have been involved. You can check out the story here.

The poor editing decision that came to my attention (a tip from Romanesko) was that the New York Times' original subhead was "White House Role Was Wider Than It Said." Not only does this subhead not provide sufficient information about the story, it also suggests a particular angle. This may also be made worse by the common perception that the New York Times is a liberal newspaper.

Romanesko put an article from Politico.com on Poynter.org that showed the NYT changed the subhead on the online version and planned to print a correction in the paper. The story is here.

Personally, I don't think this subhead was too off from what the article discussed. As a matter of fact, though, not exactly professional, this subhead may lead some liberal or government-wary peoples to read the article. What do you think? Is it right to spice up a headline to try and encourage readership?