The San Jose Mercury News, one of the most important newspapers in California, was left with egg on its face after it printed a headline declaring that the Bangkok bombing happened in Taiwan.

“Taiwan hunts for shrine bomber” reads the headline, which will probably lead to the firing of a copy editor.

Because Asia is so far away, apparently some Westerners still confuse Thailand and Taiwan… and this in the age of Google.

The wire story from the AP was written by Thai reporters one of whom took to Facebook to defend herself, saying that it was the newspaper changed the headline.

It’s common practice in media to write original headlines when publishing wire stories from services like the AP, AFP, and Reuters. We’d think that the editorial team at the well-respected Mercury News, which has won two Pulitzer Prizes, would catch an error as egregious as this, but apparently not.

The original headline was “Police hunt for ‘foreigner’ in deadly bombing of Bangkok shrine’ “.

Photo: WTF Headlines

Watch Coconuts TV’s coverage of the Bangkok bombings







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