[virgilp]

I think unfortunately journalists are trained to take phrases out of context so that they sound "sensational" / trigger emotional responses in the readers. You quickly find that out if give out interviews - you need to be very mindful how things may sound if taken out of context.

E.g. a while ago a newspaper here took me an interview/ they were building a story about people that had somewhat remarkable results in school & ample opportunities to leave (e.g. I participated in IOI and had 2 medals), and still chose to stay in the country - what were their motives, how it turned out for them. During the interview, I mentioned something along the lines that "I earn well enough to afford everything that I want, and my friends/family is here, I'm used to the local culture, etc". As a result, "I can afford everything" became basically the headline.

[megameter]

Wealth is one of the classic ones that journalists like stretching. My mom, a classical musician, got asked about her wages, and after some back and forth (since they varied by the job, of course), she was given this more specific question: "what's the most you made from a gig?" The sum she replied with, of course, made it into the resulting magazine article as an hourly average. Cue the stinkeyes from colleagues.

[cosmodisk]

This is so common in British press of lower quality: an engineer on £80K salary gets arrested for x,y,z. A man in his 30s left his £2M house before he decided to steal money from the donation box and etc.

[Chris2048]

Is it possible to sue for this kind of misrepresentation (lies), or do you need to prove financial (non social) damages?

[cosmodisk]

In Britain: very unlikely. I think sometimes journalists know the exact salaries ( public servants) or simply guess based on job title. The same with house prices. Again, the chances of getting anything through courts are very slim.

[manigandham]

Those are not journalists. They are outrage-farming ad impression generators.

[mprev]

I don't think that distinction is helpful. Journalism is too important to our society for us to give the profession a free pass by giving the shadier parts a different name.

I'm sure that wasn't your intention but a profession won't improve if there's a way for its practitioners to shrug off criticism by telling themselves some version of the no true Scotsman fallacy.

[virgilp]

Mind you, that was for a so-called "quality", printed paper. I don't even think it was a daily, I think it's a weekly "business" paper.

[barry-cotter]

Tomato tomato

[cosmodisk]

My friend's cousin got involved in some shady activities and some regional newspaper ran a full page article on this. That's where a 2 bedroom semi detached in a not so glamorous part of a small town became: a large villa in a leafy part of the town...