The news business has various ways of hooking readers. One is to write a sensational headline on a story that, once you’ve opened it, turns out to be a dud. That’s clickbait, which has always struck me as self-defeating because disappointing readers is likely to prove an unsuccessful long-term business model. If you over-egg the souffle, it will fall flat when you open the oven, and your hungry customer will walk away in disgust, never to return.

Another common trick is to make an issue seem finely balanced, on a knife’s edge, when in fact the outcome is clear. In this ruse, a foregone conclusion is presented as a cliffhanger to keep readers excited. A classic case was revealed for me after the first Gulf War in a blistering attack by the great war historian, John Keegan, who excoriated news outlets for stoking anxiety about the outcome even though a correlation of forces made it clear President George H.W. Bush’s coalition would swiftly crush Saddam Hussein’s military.