Re:There’s a Huge New Corporate Corruption Scandal. Here’s W...
by mikeash on Thursday March 31, 2016 @10:44AM
(#11397539)
I'm pretty sure the goal is to play with people's psychology to get them to click. If the goal was to show the relationship to the reader, there are much better ways to do it.
That last bit seems tautological to me. Of course there's utility in the second sentence from the headline writer's point of view, otherwise they wouldn't have put it there. The issue with "clickbait" is that the headline writer's utility diverges from the reader's utility.
That's not to say that the headline couldn't be improved. Just that from the headline writer's point of view, there is utility in the second sentence.