fear-mongers at work

The headline: Teen Reported Missing After Meeting Man Online Found Safe.

This is certainly an attention-grabbing headline. The implication is clear: a middle-schooler was abducted by a dirty old man hanging out online to find girls like her. Outrage!

It turns out the the teen is a 19-year-old woman. The headline writer chose to ignore that fact and word things to play on fears of online predators, all without knowing whether the "online man" had anything to do with her going missing or not.

Note that the story does not mention the age of the man.