Headlines can be intentionally vague for a number of reasons. They may omit certain words to encourage a higher click-rate. Here’s an example from the sports world:
Ex-Lions RB Coach Lands Gig With Browns After Being Dismissed by Panthers.
If you are curious who that running backs coach is (and you don’t know everyone on NFL coaching staffs), you would likely click on the headline to find out that the article is talking about Duce Staley. Imagine if the headline directly mentioned Staley. Unless you were interested in a longer read about how and why he was selected by the Browns, you could skip the article entirely. The information you needed was all in the headline.
That sounds like a deceptive reason to omit words from a headline, but it’s incredibly effective. In an era where clicks mean relevancy, a publication will tease the reader in the headline, thus intriguing them to read further.
Another reason to omit words from a headline: to bury something that the writer or publication would prefer not to reveal. This is not always a deceptive tactic; it could be done to neutralize a particularly scandalous topic.
Case in point, this headline from NBC about a well-known burger franchise in California and the Southwest:
For the First Time Ever, In-N-Out Closes One of Its Stores.
Read only the headline and you might be fuming about the economy forcing businesses to fold. The article does say in the first paragraph that the reason the restaurant in Oakland is closing is because of rampant crime, but you might not assume that from the headline.
Other news outlets got right to the point. This news station, for example, didn’t mince words in the headline: Oakland’s In-N-Out Shuts Doors Due to Crime. The article immediately says that the restaurant was forced to make this decision to do “regular car break-ins, property damage, theft, and armed robberies of customers and employees.”
No matter the headline, that is a sad story for lovers of In-N-Out Burgers in Oakland.
Next, we get to one of the slyest reasons for publishing a deceptive headline: to get the reader to think a certain way about the subject. Here’s a great recent example:
Tesla Owners Run Into Battery Charging Trouble in Chicago’s Bitter Cold
A curious headline because it wasn’t just Teslas that weren’t charging when it was freezing cold in the Midwest last week. Most of the article describes frustrated Tesla owners not being able to use charging stations, along with information from the company about how it is improving cold-weather performance of its vehicles.
It’s not until three paragraphs before the end of the article that this is mentioned:
“Electric vehicles, or EVs, are known for losing efficiency in cold weather, an issue that Consumer Reports investigated last year due to concerns about significant variations in how different electric cars held up in cold weather. At the same time, the federal government is dangling a $7,500 federal tax credit, a financial carrot that helped boost EV sales to a record 1.2 million vehicles last year.”
The truth is that all EVs have battery problems in extremely cold temperatures. Yes, Tesla has the market cornered in EVs, but the headline suggests it’s only Teslas with the problem.
You can only speculate why the headline mentions Tesla. Perhaps the lure of the name is likely to produce more clicks. It’s also possible that the headline draws a negative line toward Tesla’s founder, Elon Musk, who has faced tons of criticism since his takeover of Twitter (now X) and his outspoken comments about myriad topics. This presents a golden opportunity for social media bashing (some of it on Musk’s own platform!)
Finally, we present what could be the greatest tricky headline of all time:
Doing Your Own Research Is a Good Way to End Up Being Wrong
The Washington Post article focuses on a report titled “Online searches to evaluate misinformation can increase its perceived veracity,” by researchers from the University of Central Florida, New York University and Stanford. The researchers say, in part, “When individuals search online about misinformation, they are more likely to be exposed to lower-quality information than when individuals search about true news” and “those who are exposed to low-quality information are more likely to believe false/misleading news stories to be true relative to those who are not.
“We present consistent evidence that online search to evaluate the truthfulness of false news articles actually increases the probability of believing them.”
What misinformation are we talking about? According to the Post, it’s all coming from right-wing media. The Post is not a right-wing media source; therefore, it’s pretty easy to draw the conclusion that unless you’re getting your information from news sources like the Post, you’re really getting bad information.
The headline makes an even bolder claim, though. Any research you do on your own is going to be wrong. Don’t even bother trying to figure the news out on your own. Leave it to our journalists to tell you what you should know.
Maybe that’s not exactly what the article ends up saying, but the headline certainly strikes a condescending tone towards readers.
You absolutely can and should do your own research.
Look for multiple news sources, especially independent sites without a left or right bias.
Come up with your own questions and look for articles that address them.
Be open minded to opposing views.
Form your own conclusions.
Of course, you need to be aware of faulty information. You also need to be on the lookout for sneaky headlines that only tell part of the story or attempt to make up your mind for you.
In a world where so many of us head to the internet for answers on everything, and where Google is our friend, it can be confusing, even for those of us who have been trained to look for warning signs. Sifting through misinformation and disinformation can be exhausting, which may be why so many take the easy way out and tend to believe whatever it is that will solidify their own beliefs.
Thank you for this. We need to study these things even more thoroughly, especially those headlines that are more like advertisements, as you cite with the Washington Post headline. Good catch!
I wholeheartedly agree: we should always be prepared to do our own research, at least to some extent. But here's the thornier question: how do we really know what sources are independent and have no left- or right-wing bias? This used to be an easier answer when there were a relatively limited number of major-market newspapers (or you had a local newspaper), and there were only a handful of broadcast media news networks. Now, it seems there's practically an infinite number of sources.