Before elaborating, a tidbit of reality bears repeating:

The job of media members is to enable their employers to earn a profit through participation in the media industry. If media members also provide the general public with 100%-correct data, then that is a bonus.

Here is a second tidbit of reality:

Media members do not have to provide the general public with 100%-correct data in order to get members of the general public to click on a headline so long as the headline is sensational.

That second tidbit was revealed in a 17 September 2025 headline appearing on the website Real Clear Energy.

Here is a screenshot from that website:

Can you detect the sensationalist headline that is click-bait but in error?

Here it is headline: “Trump Ends Group That Doubted Climate Change”.

Here is the error: That group of climate scientists never doubted climate change.

Real Clear Energy’s headline presents a falsehood, but it is a falsehood that generate clicks for CNN.

Getting people to click on the headline is all that matters even if the headline presents something false.

For the purpose of this particular blog post, I will not elaborate about the CNN report that the Real Clear Energy headline links to.

The take-away here is this:

Media members do not have to make accurate statements in order to get you to read their stuff.