This headline is a good example of the problem with the passive voice. My first assumption when reading the headline was that an Apple lawyer told him that. A better headline would be something like:
"Palm CEO Told Jobs Anti-Poaching Pact 'Likely Illegal'"
In general, using the passive voice in a news context anonymizes the subjects of a particular story. In this case, the headline writer probably did so in order to make Jobs the only subject of the headline, but it hides very important information about the story.
You're probably thinking that the first sentence provides the information, but studies show that a large percentage of news readers read only the headline (I suspect that is especially true about news aggregators), and that there is a precipitous decline in readership in every sentence thereafter.
As a result, newswriters usually pay a lot of attention to making sure that headlines and article ledes have as much pertinent information as possible. As it should be.
"Palm CEO Told Jobs Anti-Poaching Pact 'Likely Illegal'"
In general, using the passive voice in a news context anonymizes the subjects of a particular story. In this case, the headline writer probably did so in order to make Jobs the only subject of the headline, but it hides very important information about the story.
You're probably thinking that the first sentence provides the information, but studies show that a large percentage of news readers read only the headline (I suspect that is especially true about news aggregators), and that there is a precipitous decline in readership in every sentence thereafter.
As a result, newswriters usually pay a lot of attention to making sure that headlines and article ledes have as much pertinent information as possible. As it should be.