On Friday night Trump posted that the US had secured "majority U.S. control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American Taxpayer" — "THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY!" By Saturday morning, every whitelisted headline in sight was carrying his number. CNN: "Trump says US reaches deal with Venezuela to control 65 billion barrels of country's oil reserves." NBC: "U.S. has entered deal with Venezuela to take control of 65 billion barrels of oil reserves, Trump says." BBC: "Trump hails 'historic' deal for US to control 65bn barrels of Venezuela's oil." Sixty-five billion, sixty-five billion, sixty-five billion. The 'Trump says' seatbelts are all fastened, and good. But a headline number is a choice, and everyone chose the one from the poster. * Because here's what CNN's own reporting found, several screens down, from a White House official: the deal gives the US "55% effective output of a new private joint venture that will be the second-largest private oil company by reserves in the world," and Venezuela's interim president "granted a private company 100-year concessions for the oil fields." Read that again. One hundred years. A concession that outlives every reader of the article, signed in a week, headlined by nobody — including the outlet that reported it. CNN got the century into paragraph eight and Trump's barrel count into the headline. That's not a scoop being buried by a rival. That's an outlet burying its own. * One sentence of background, which happens to be the whole ballgame: in January the US military attacked Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro — CNN's body says it plainly, "a large-scale military operation" — and the "Highly Respected Interim President, Delcy Rodriguez" who just signed away the fields came to office in the aftermath, then backed a January law change making it easier for foreign companies to enter the oil industry. So the "deal with Venezuela" is a deal with a government that exists because the buyer's military removed the last one, seven months ago. A deal implies a party that could have said no. Which headline verb tells you that? "Reaches deal" doesn't. "Enters agreement" doesn't. * Credit where due, in two surprising places. NBC's body described the gas-price backdrop as "the war with Iran, which the U.S. and Israel started exactly six months ago" — an American newsroom putting the founding verb in the right place, no 'tensions escalated' fog. And the bluntest headline in the English-speaking press came from, of all places, The Mirror: "Donald Trump boasts as US makes oil move after deposing Venezuela's Maduro." 'Boasts.' 'After deposing.' The tabloid put the coup context in the headline while the broadsheets filed it under paragraph eight. We roast the Mirror plenty; today it out-reported the front pages by being unable to resist a good verb. * The soft end of the spectrum: the Guardian's news headline was "Trump announces new US oil agreement with Venezuela" — technically immaculate, informationally beige — though its second story, "Venezuelan opposition up in arms over reports US wants big stake in oil and gas," at least found the people who object. And the BBC's subhead handed the microphone to the signatory: the "interim president says the unusual agreement will help revive her country's economy." 'Unusual' is doing heroic work in that sentence. It's an agreement in which the country that carried out January's military operation ends up with majority control of the other country's core asset, for a century. 'Unusual' is one word for it. * The pattern, and it's an old one: when a government announces something with a big number attached, the number in the announcement becomes the number in the headline — it's pre-packaged, it's checkable against nothing, and it's exactly what the announcer wants amplified. The numbers that took reporting to extract — 55%, 100 years, one deposed president — sit below the fold in the very articles that extracted them. CNN did the journalism. Then it headlined the press release.