Time was when key words in your title like "new" or "free" would garner interest and increase readership - whether it was an article, email, ad, or blog.
Now the words that play are "crisis" and "scandal." Nevermind whether the article ever discusses anything on the order of the headline. By the time you figure that out, you're already well into the piece.
I've seen many articles lead with the headline of some crisis or scandal (not the typical housing or ecomomic ones), and of course we want information, so we read on. Often we are disappointed because the article contains nothing we didn't already know about a subject or nothing seriously wrong or inappropriate that would rise to the description of "crisis" or "scandal."
Particularly the word "scandal" is one that appeals to something within us to learn more - to get the juicy details. Writers know this and now label non-scandalous - in fact often non-news - articles as "scandal." And we gobble it up as quickly as we can.
The only scandal that most of these articles offer is that they tricked us into reading them.
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