Gee John, surely that is a overly harsh criticism. There are far worse things in the media than that. I love watching “Media Watch”. It is just a headline designed to create an impact. “Giant eagle” is shorter than “Wedge-tailed Eagle”, which is given in the text. A short form of headline is totally normal of every item in the news. It could have just said “Eagle smashes through man’s windscreen”. No difference really, except not everyone knows that an eagle is a big bird.
Yes, on world standards Wedge-tailed Eagles are big eagles. Whether that makes it fair to call them a giant eagle, is a trivial point it is just sensationalism. Whether the individual involved was a big one or not is not stated or known (or even relevant). The driver involved probably thought it was a giant eagle and it would not surprise me if those were his words, rather than the reporter’s. At least the reporter seems to have been good in coming up with a likely species identity and some simple information about the species. A better effort than most would do. I don’t think the intention was to create an impression that this bird was some unknown creature (a Giant eagle) or even out of the ordinary, it was descriptive of the impression on the driver, rather than identifying the species.
I do not agree at all with your conclusions about what the headline implies. Especially as it goes on to mention normal information about the likely species. I also don’t think it fair to expect each reporter to be familiar with “the species concept.”
I’m lost at “preternaturally”.
Lastly: “given band aids for his scratches” does not sound too severe. I wonder how many are from the bird and how many from broken glass?
Philip
