What's in a name?

You would think that news was sensational enough.  It is not unknown to any American that our news media will construct a story with just the right wording to imply the most chaos, pain and anguish.  You would think that science articles would be immune to such nonsense, but not so.  After reading two science articles in Yahoo News today, I became confused.  The first article described how a dwarf planet just received the name of "Eris."  The next article explained how Pluto, since it was demoted to a dwarf planet, was receiving a new name: 134340.  The logic escaped me.  Why would one dwarf planet get a name and another be stripped of its name?  After some digging, I learned that Pluto had just received and asteroid number.  I found the original article in Sky and Telescope magazine, and this article mentioned nothing about a "new name" but described more like "another name."  However, this did not stop a staff writer named Ker Than from Space.com from writing an article entitled "Pluto is now just a number: 134340."  Oooo, the sensationalism of it all.  I can this writer in my head now, thinking, "This story needs some blood on it."  Maybe he/she (Is Ker a little girl's name or a little boys name?) used to be an embedded reporter in Iraq, and missed the carnage.  So this reporter thinks to themselves "If I phrase this just right, people will think that Pluto isn't called Pluto anymore."  Brilliant.  This kid will most assuredly be a rising star in the sensationalist news world, shading meaning with the rest of them, with his/her ability to turn the most inane news into high drama.