Update:The Union Leader corrected the headline, possibly in response to my complaint. Kudos!
News websites want clicks to their articles. They’re what bring in advertising revenue. Too many of them mislead the reader or sensationalize the story for the sake of clicks. Sometimes they engage in outright falsehood. An example is an article on the website of the Manchester, NH Union Leader, which carries the false headline “Free staters continue to meet despite ban.”
The article is actually about the Free Keene organization, which has no connection with the Free State Project beyond being based in the same state. Most libertarians in New Hampshire regard Free Keene as a little crazy. Putting their health at risk to make a point isn’t very smart.
The author of the article, Damien Fisher, isn’t at fault. The article correctly references Free Keene as the organization which is involved. But some headline writer decided that claiming “Free Staters” held the meeting would get more clicks than the truth would.
That’s one of the risks of being a news reporter. You write a perfectly good article, and some editor or headline writer turns it into a lie for the sake of revenue.
New sites sometimes change their articles in place without acknowledging it, so here’s a screen shot of the article as it appeared this morning.
The headline is false.