It’s no secret that when it comes to delivering information the more people who see what you have to say the greater the chance you’ll be able to make money off of them.
And in the Internet Age, where it’s easy for anyone to say anything anytime to anyone else and where people’s attention span is short or their need for stimulation is immediate or continual, you need your message to stand out over the billions of others trying to do the exact same thing.
One of the best ways to accomplish this is to write a sensational, misleading, or even fake headline designed to entice readers to click on your link, a tactic commonly called “Clickbait”.
While perusing the news right after lunch I came across this sensational headline from Fox News:
President Trump will give Americans $2,000 from his tariff revenue if they re-elect him? Surely Fox News must know a US President can only be elected to two terms, and Trump’s already in his second term. So what is Trump being “re-elected” to?
Maybe Fox News knows something I don’t, so naturally I clicked the link…
…and found NOTHING in the article having anything to do with the article’s headline.
It was an example of clickbait worthy of another popular website whose journalistic integrity I’ve written about a few times in the past.
Fortunately, revisiting the Fox News site a couple hours later revealed the article’s headline had changed…
…and the article including a quote from Trump’s Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt along with the tag “Updated December 16, 2025 3:32pm EST”.
Here’s a comparison of the original and updated copy:
(Click for a much larger image)
Perhaps in the few hours Fox News ran a flagrantly misleading and unsubstantiated headline they obtained all the clicks they needed.
This is the kind of yellow journalism I expect from the Liberal Mainstream Media outlets, and while it’s the first time I’ve noticed such an obvious use of a misleading and unsubstantiated headline from Fox News I fear it won’t be the last.
During coverage of the 2024 Presidential election then-candidate Trump, after seeing how much time Fox News devoted to interviewing his Democrat opponent’s Senior Advisor and “all of the other Harris Radical Left Democrat mouthpieces”, wrote “FoxNews has totally lost its way!”
Based on President Trump’s uncanny ability to be correct he may be correct once again. In the meantime perhaps we should consider renaming Fox News to “Faux News”.
Thanks for Reading!
