Journalism: Betteridge’s law of headlines

Journalism: Betteridge’s law of headlines

From Ian Betterridge:

This story is a great demonstration of my maxim that any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word “no.” The reason why journalists use that style of headline is that they know the story is probably bullshit, and don’t actually have the sources and facts to back it up, but still want to run it.

From Andrew Marr:

A headline with a question mark at the end means, in the vast majority of cases, that the story is tendentious or over-sold. It is often a scare story, or an attempt to elevate some run-of-the-mill piece of reporting into a national controversy and, preferably, a national panic.

Source: Betteridge’s law of headlines – Wikipedia

In other words, any news headline that ends with a question mark is likely either bull shit, click-bait or propaganda messaging.

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