But shouldn't we then prefer the lest sensational variant, we are so swamped with bad news all the time that at least for external (i.e. country far away, likely not going to affect the country the news is for) things if I had the choice between two attention grabbing similar misleading titles I would always prefer the one which is less painting the picture of "the whole world goes to shit". Because AFIK this kind of misunderstanding produced here is less likely to have further negative ripple effects of people which only saw the headline incorrectly quoting it.
But also I'm living in a country where there is no issue with newspapers constantly downplaying police or citizen violence.
Thats what happened with “residential explosion.”