Not sure about the choice of words there.....

Now we all know the Guardian is widely regarded as left of centre and have plenty of targets that they can aim at regarding Tory mis-management and policies but occasionally they use language that betrays their political leanings and damages their credibility with both their readership and those who they are trying to 'win over' claiming to be a solely 'facts driven' outlet.
Choice of words is equally important and subliminal messaging can often cancel out a factual report something all news outlets use regularly on both sides of the divide these days.

Today's Guardian headline is "Tories plot childcare giveaway in budget".
Now in no way is this post about defending the Tories but what is it with the word 'plot' (dictionary definition in this context....."A plan made in secret by a group of people to do something illegal or harmful")

Now I don't know about you but whatever side of the political fence you sit on, increasing the childcare budget to the benefit of working people and families is surely a good thing so why the negative implication?

Sadly, the standards of journalism seem to diminish day by day.

 

The standards of journalism have gone down and, unfortunately, on both sides of the political divide headlines are often reduced to clickbait.

 

As @churtonred says, headlines have become reduced to the point of clickbait.
I’m actually impressed that the Grauniad held out so long as the Indy became unreadable a couple of years ago.

On the subject of clickbait though;
My girlfriend suggested I’d become addicted to clickbait. You’ll never guess what happened next.

credit to Gary Delaney

 

Was she outraged?

 

Cry more. Pretty much every other paper has lied and slandered and used appalling or misleading language and tone about anything left of Facism since the year dot.

 

That's not the point though is it? Doing the same doesn't help. There are a lot of articles from my side of the political spectrum as well as the other that I refuse to read because of the clearly "let's induce outrage" headline.
How is that helping to educate and inform?

 

In the olden days, we went to the shop and bought the whole paper. Now, their ad revenue is linked to individual articles. So they need to get you to click on the article. By whatever means.

Stories about the weather are the best. We never just have snow any more. That's not exciting enough and doesn't induce enough clicks. So we have thunder snow. Snowmageddon.

 

Funny how it's always the Guardian and BBC you have journalistic objections to, and never the Mail, Express or Telegraph all of whom are far worse when it comes to bias and inappropriate implication.

In this case I agree it doesn't read well but having looked for the story on their website the headline there is "Treasury considering huge expansion of free childcare in England" which is completely fair.

 

It isn’t. But educating and informing isn’t the point of any of these publications is it? There’s no such thing as news, only propaganda.

 

Collins English Dictionary:

Plot
VERB
When people plot a strategy or a course of action, they carefully plan each step of it.

 

Yawn. Your constant personal digs at me are becoming tiresome. I comment on the BBC since I regularly ( daily) use their website news as a source of info. I don't recall constantly picking up on the Grauniad output but I am sure you will enlighten me by trawling through my past posts to make a point as you have done in the past. As regards the Mail,Telegraph, Times, Sun,Daily Star, Express and the laughably named (nowadays) Independent I would be ranting daily more than I already do . browse the BBC roundup summary of the days newspapers and occasionally pick up on odd standout thingike the one in the OP. The problem is the rest these sorts of c lickbait are now so common they become background noise. I am notcommenting on the article in this instance as the sub heading, as you say was fair. Nevertheless, the headlines from the Guardian are deteriorating into clickbait far more frequently to the extent they are becoming as bad as the redtops.

 

Just found this from a November 1605 Daily Mail edition 'For Fawkes' sake - wild-looking Yorkshire man with uneducated accent and pile of gunpowder arrested by brave local heroes in House Of Lords cellar. Top politician says "Its my dream to send all catholic scum like this to Rwanda"'

 

Guardian support Lib Dem’s , Tory quislings

 

There are many different definitions based on context. e.g. in film,book or play the plot is something else. I referenced context since in the OP plot was used as clickbait in a negative sense unlike the body of the text referencing Labours plans regarding childcare.

 

Unfortunately.... Good news doesn't sell newspapers, hence headlines that can be portrayed in a negative way, no matter which side of the political divide you sway

 

Don't really get the outrage on this one, substituting plot for plan doesn't make much difference in how I view the story.

 

I am of the opinion that the word plot was used in the context I shared as they are plotting a course of action to give more free childcare. that definition fits with the rest of the story and indeed with the rest of the words right below the headlinecon the front page much more closely than the guess that they meant the negative definition just because that would have fitted your narrative more.

 

That's how I'd interpret plot in the original post's context

 

Is it clickbait if they're not actually using it online?

 

This. This, this and this. The Independent became as bad as the Mail in my eyes, except on the other side of the political spectrum.