> A non-clickbait title would be: "Pollution suspected of causing rare cancers in Waycross, GA"
That's arguably worse than clickbait. It actually discourages people from reading the article who might find it interesting.
It suffers from being both too specific and too general at the same time.
It's too specific because Waycross, GA, is a town of under 14k people and as far as I can see there is no reason to expect that many people outside of Georgia to have ever heard of it. Naming it in the headline suggests that the story is aimed at those people who do recognize it.
It's too general because of course it is pollution. The other things that cause cancer don't tend to cause cancer spikes in small areas.
Both the town and the cause are actually incidental to this story. The interesting aspects of the story are how the various parties reacted when some started noticing there might be a cancer cluster.
That's arguably worse than clickbait. It actually discourages people from reading the article who might find it interesting.
It suffers from being both too specific and too general at the same time.
It's too specific because Waycross, GA, is a town of under 14k people and as far as I can see there is no reason to expect that many people outside of Georgia to have ever heard of it. Naming it in the headline suggests that the story is aimed at those people who do recognize it.
It's too general because of course it is pollution. The other things that cause cancer don't tend to cause cancer spikes in small areas.
Both the town and the cause are actually incidental to this story. The interesting aspects of the story are how the various parties reacted when some started noticing there might be a cancer cluster.