I am so friggin' sick of the deliberately misleading headlines...

[ClusterFreak]

...on the Huffington Post!!!

For f*** sake...will you guys stop it already!! I mean, are you so desperate for website traffic that you have to lure people in with mysterious headlines about seemingly nefarious activities....that ALMOST NEVER ARE!!!??

Case in point...right now on HP...there's a headline which says, and I quote:

"WATCH: Obama Cuts Memorial Day Speech, Tells Thousands To Go Back To Their Cars"


Oooooooooohhhhhhh....sounds pretty serious....wonder what's up?

Well...click on the link and it opens up another headline which reads:

"Obama Memorial Day Speech Cut Short By Rain, Lightning."

That's it.

That's what all the fuss is about. In other words...another headline could have read: "President Uses Common Sense, Cancels Speech In A Torrential Downpour".

Arianna, your people have no shame...and since it's your website with your name affixed, and this kind of shit has been going on for months/years(?), it's on YOU to make it stop.

[WillParkinson]

1. Sorry to say...

Sensational journalism sells.

Does that make it right? Heck no. Is Huffington Post the only one who is doing it? Sadly, also a heck no.

What headline makes you want to open the article more? If it was a newspaper article the same could be said. Unless they draw your attention to it, by hook or by crook, a lot of them just go unread.

[drm604]

2. This always bugs me.

It's not just HP, but yes they are definitely guilty of it.

I wonder if they actually teach this in journalism schools.

I should add that I think this leads to a lot of misinformation being propogated, intentionally or not. People often read the headline and nothing else.

[ClusterFreak]

3. Agreed...

I guess it's because I check out HP a lot...but it's really got to the point where the headline writers over there need to give themselves a serious, collective head shake.

No matter if they're talking about politics, entertainment, sports, lifestyle...whatever...

Aargh, to say the least.

[rcrush]

4. They got to give you a reason to go to Huffpo besides nipslip shots.

[doc03]

5. They did the same thing on the Comcast home page

I thought, oh now what happened and found out it was just lightning.