Headlines are not one monolithic thing, any more than publishers are.
There are giant worldwide news organizations, there are personal blog publishers, and everything in between.
They all have different constraints and different motivations for their headlines.
Even if you look at just one type of publisher -- a traditional print newspaper with an online presence -- you are likely to find that they write multiple headlines for each story, depending on where that headline will be seen.
For instance, they might write one headline for the print version of the story that's constrained by page layout requirements.
Then then might write another headline that gets displayed on their homepage. It has to be short, punchy, and eye-catching.
Then they might write another longer, more complete, SEO-friendly headline that gets displayed when you actually click on the link to the story.
There might also be an alternate headline that gets displayed as the HTML/meta title of the page, which can be useful for when the link is shared via social media.
And all of those have their specific purposes and limitations.
Another wrinkle: In the case of news organizations, it's highly likely that the person who writes the headline is not the person who writes the article, whereas typically with personal blogs the same person writes both the story text and the title.
So if inaccurate or sensationalistic headlines are one problem, then another problem is treating headlines as if they are all the same. They're not.
Headlines are not one monolithic thing, any more than publishers are.
There are giant worldwide news organizations, there are personal blog publishers, and everything in between.
They all have different constraints and different motivations for their headlines.
Even if you look at just one type of publisher -- a traditional print newspaper with an online presence -- you are likely to find that they write multiple headlines for each story, depending on where that headline will be seen.
For instance, they might write one headline for the print version of the story that's constrained by page layout requirements.
Then then might write another headline that gets displayed on their homepage. It has to be short, punchy, and eye-catching.
Then they might write another longer, more complete, SEO-friendly headline that gets displayed when you actually click on the link to the story.
There might also be an alternate headline that gets displayed as the HTML/meta title of the page, which can be useful for when the link is shared via social media.
And all of those have their specific purposes and limitations.
Another wrinkle: In the case of news organizations, it's highly likely that the person who writes the headline is not the person who writes the article, whereas typically with personal blogs the same person writes both the story text and the title.
So if inaccurate or sensationalistic headlines are one problem, then another problem is treating headlines as if they are all the same. They're not.