Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.

Ian Betteridge
Ian Betteridge (contemp.) British technology journalist
Betteridge’s Law of Headlines
    (Source)

Common paraphrase of the following, on a TechCrunch article with the headline "Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA?": "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." ("TechCrunch: Irresponsible journalism" (23 Feb 2009). More information here.

 
Added on 29-Jan-14 | Last updated 29-Jan-14
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