There’s a special place in hell reserved for people who walk slowly on the sidewalks of Manhattan—and right next to them should sit the headline-hungry journalists who think sensationalism, and truth be damned, is worth the clicks.

In the business of news, there’s a saying I heard once: “If it bleeds, it leads.” But these days, it’s more accurate to say, “If it’s scandalous or divisive, it’ll get the clicks.” And with the ever-increasing demands of the 24-hour news cycle, sensational headlines have become the name of the game. Yet this approach is more than just misguided; it’s dangerous. The media’s blind pursuit of a juicy headline and blind bias without considering the fallout has real, often deadly, consequences. Journalists today need to be reminded that what they publish matters—not just in clicks but in the real-world effects of their stories.

Dirty Laundry comes to mind, famously sung by Don Henley in the video below. Still relevant all these years later.

Consider a tragic case from the early 2000s, when investigative journalists published an article exposing the secret identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

The story garnered plenty of buzz, sure, but it also led to a blown cover and many times before, operatives being targeted and, in some cases, killed by enemy forces.

Flash forward to recent years, and we see another example of reckless media frenzy: the so-called “Russia-gate” scandal. With baseless accusations and rumors, newsrooms fed Democrat bylines that fueled a narrative that Trump and Russia were embroiled in some nefarious plot.

Years later, those accusations turned out to be outright false. The damage? Diplomatic tensions with Russia that could’ve been avoided—and an American public more polarized and skeptical than ever.