Is there any reason for a headline like this?

I thought this was a fake, so I looked into it.

From Post spokesperson Kristine Coratti Kelly:

"Post correspondents have spent years in Iraq and Syria documenting ISIS savagery, often at great personal risk. Unfortunately, a headline written in haste to portray the origins of al-Baghdadi and ISIS didn't communicate that brutality. The headline was promptly changed."

and

"Regarding our al-Baghdadi obituary, the headline should never have read that way and we changed it quickly."

The original headline read: "Islamic State’s terrorist-in-chief."

However, the article tried to explain his backstory and part of it said he was an, "austere religious scholar with wire-frame glasses and no known aptitude for fighting and killing." 

For whatever reason, someone thought it was too much or that it didn't portray the backstory and literally did a copy-paste from part of the article to rename it. Obviously, a big oops. The Post was not happy and I have a feeling whoever did that got fired. 

They caught it fairly quickly and changed it to read "extremist leader of Islamic State."

I get why people are mad. I agree the second title was in poor taste. However, I don't think we need to turn this into a thing like it was somehow the Post intentionally glossing over the heinous crimes committed. 

That said, it did lead to some amazingly funny Tweets...

"Adolf Hitler, dedicated art enthusiast, animal rights activist, and talented orator, dies at 56."

"Ted Bundy, meticulous researcher, charismatic figure, and Polaroid enthusiast, dead at 42."

Look at the bright side, eh?

While the description given is wildly incomplete, it isn’t inaccurate. It is, however, a sign of your own bias that you singled THIS ONE out to smear all media with the same brush. Couldn’t we just as easily roll out any number of Fox News headlines? 

What more people should realize is what the media is for, what it’s value is, and what we as the audience need do to benefit most from it.
Media is biased, yes, because humans who work in the media are; and because complete objectivity is impossible. But that isn’t to say all media is therefore worthless or inherently flawed. Information is power baby, and the more info we have, the better positioned we are to assess things for ourselves. That is what media is for.  

Where would we be without a free press? North Korea, The Dark Ages,...Pick one.
Getting only what crumbs the tyrant pushes off his plate to us.

It should be clear that scenario isn’t many more steps from a grossly incompetent, self-absorbed national leader denigrating media at every turn, for his every problem.

An admittedly flawed, bias-prone, but free news media is many miles better than one controlled by the state, or having none at all.

(No way I get Askers Pick for this) ;) 

This post was edited by Don Barzini at October 29, 2019 12:09 PM MDT

This was a poorly-worded headline and I'm glad it was changed. The headline itself isn't a lie, but it does play into a suspicion that some media outlets are sympathetic to terrorism. And while I'm not convinced of that, it's a bad image to have and sometimes it pays to not be callous in your reporting. 

I took the headline as pure sarcasm because anyone who pays attention to the news knows exactly who and what al-Baghdadi represents.