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Comment by dang

7 months ago

Linkbait is about using tricks to grab attention rather than providing neutral information. Hyperbole is only one way to do that.

In this case "The man who" is a linkbait trope and "killed" is a sensational attention-grabby word. Composing them into "the man who killed" is linkbait.

The headline makes a promise and the article delivers on it.

At this stage, I think your reading is idiosyncratic and not an actual problem with the headline in relation to the article.

Editorialising it with a question mark that is not present in the article - which makes its case - is particularly inappropriate, as it makes it look like the article is asking a Betteridge question for a headline. This is you misrepresenting the article.