The Press: Low Leap

Sweden's press, starting point of many an international rumor chase, is also home base for the misleading headline. Example: "RUSSIAN TROOPS TO ITALY?", followed by a story quoting Bern speculation based on Ankara reports that Soviet participation in the Advisory Council for Italy might logically involve—"who knows?"—Russian troops.

Last week Stockholm's Dagens Nyheter fell to a new low with a front-paged:

"SEVEN JUMP FROM PLANES WITHOUT PARACHUTES." The story: three Canadians, four Englishmen jumped from a Lancaster bomber over southern Sweden after the Stettin raid "all unhurt . . . astonishing feat." In other papers the astonishing feat was qualified by a fact that Dagens Nyheter did not print. When the jump was made the plane was over southern Sweden, but it was on the ground.