zlacker

>If a ring of doctors were caught illegally selling organs, we wouldn't title an article "Doctors have been selling organs for years". If bank tellers in a specific city were taking some money off the top of deposits, we wouldn't write "Bank tellers have been stealing money for years".

I see headlines like this daily. They're meant to be eye catching and make it seem like everyone is being hit by it, then a few lines into the article, they rapidly cut back on the scope because they've already got your ad money.

But the FBI and police departments around the country have used intimidation tactics for as long as they've been around. This author is writing about their personal experience in Memphis. It's possible that other people will come forward with similar experiences. We've already seen videos of police arresting/intimidating journalists around the country for no reason these past two weeks, so it's definitely not a problem confined to Memphis.

>>fiblye+(OP)
> They're meant to be eye catching and make it seem like everyone is being hit by it, then a few lines into the article, they rapidly cut back on the scope because they've already got your ad money.

I'm not certain it's fair to compare standard clickbait to a title on NiemanLab - it seems like you agree with me that it's a not a positive thing. I think we've definitely seen increasing amounts of this behavior from more prominent publications, but I wish we wouldn't.

I'm sure other people will come forward with similar experiences, but they haven't yet. It seems like a dangerous approach to assume the worst until then.