The headline on the lead story of the Dec. 21 Religion & Values section – “Poll finds Christmas has lost its meaning” – is inaccurate and carelessly misleading.
According to the article, half of the respondents consider Christmas a religious holiday and 54 percent planned to attend worship services. Those figures certainly don’t justify the “lost its meaning” conclusion.
On the back page of the same section is a story that says a study found “that young American Jews are growing increasingly estranged from Judaism.”
Had the headline writer applied the same standard with that story as used with the Christmas poll story, the headline would have read: “Study finds Judaism has lost its meaning.” Instead, that story carried a more responsible heading: “Israel remains key to Jewish Americans’ identity.”
Headlines should reflect the facts of their articles, free from interpretation as opinion.
Dennis Twomey
Old Orchard Beach
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