With all respect, Scopes does not tell entire story, and its omissions are deceptive.
WSJ does print different editions regionally. The purpose is to let regional advertisers concentrate their advertising dollars where they will do some good.
There are three major editions, East, Central and Western. Within those three editions, their are 21 Regions.
For example, the East Edition has 7 regions, the
New England, Greater New York, Philadelphia, Washington/Baltimore, Southern, South Atlantic and Florida regions
The purpose is so news affecting those regions can be highlighted and advertisers can concentrate on potential customers within their marketing area.
For example, a yacht broker, law firm or hospital in Miami can save money by advertising only in the East Edition, or to be more specific, the Florida region.
The headline and story shown in the picture could have easily been changed to fit the audience and attract more readers..... and therefore advertisers.
As a matter of collaboration, when they changed the story completely, they didn’t print a retractions for the first one!
More advertisers means more profits, and remember, newspapers have only one purpose... to make money for the people who own the paper.
Yes.
And even if one accepts the “later edition” explanation, the later will be a de facto edition in a different area due to the dynamics of when people buy or receive papers.
Snopes uses the “mostly false” term, which makes no real sense, to say things are false that are in fact true.
They cannot deny facts, so they will try to paint it as false based on subjective aspects or opinion.
Here specifically the real question is a factual one - were there two editions with different captions to the same photo?
The answer is yes, so it is not “mostly false”, it is 100% true.
They pronounce it “mostly false” based on unfalsifiable and unprovable claims about what is intended.