The headline of a Washington Examiner opinion piece yesterday was titled “Poll: 25% want mask use until 2023, some ‘indefinitely’”, but the story itself disagrees with that. What it says is that that number of people “expect that they’ll be required to wear masks”, not want that:
The latest Rasmussen Reports survey said that 58% of respondents expect that they’ll be required to wear masks in public places for at least another six months, including 25% for 18 months or longer.
It is hard to believe anybody involve in journalism would not understand that those are two very different things.
At some news outlets the headline of a story is written by someone other than the author of the story, which seems problematic, but that doesn’t excuse the author of the story from a misleading headline. The author of the story is listed as Paul Bedard, Washington Secrets Columnist. He put out this tweet that repeats the false claim of the headline:
Poll: 25% want mask use to 2023, some ‘indefinitely’
The expectations of prolonged mask wearing comes despite the feeling by 50% of adults that the U.S. is winning the war on the virus @Rasmussen_Poll
In his Twitter profile he describes himself this way:
Washington Secrets. Prior: USNews Washington Whispers, Washington Times White House correspondent — Bush 41 and Bubba
Going back to the tweet for a second, there is only one response from someone pointing that the claim is false and that one is hidden unless you click “show more replies”.