I was very surprised to see this box front and center on AOL's homepage a couple of hours ago:
I was struck by the sub-headline, "Middle Class Is About to Feel the Pain." I'm not aware of any planned increases to the middle class tax brackets, so I was interested to see how other changes to the tax code will be adversely affecting the middle class.
Clicking on the headline led to this box:
This Middle Class Model, apparently living in a dystopian 2011, looks very upset about the tax pain he's feeling. Let's go to the gallery…
And now we get a full view of our pinched model and an actual explanation of how the "Middle Class Is About to Feel the Pain."
Think Taxes Are Too High Now? Just wait: Congress is all but certain to raise them a couple of years from now. Tax increases will hit both businesses and individuals – and not just singles making more than $200,000 a year and married couples over $250,000 a year. They’ll be the first to get pinched, but not the last. There’s just not enough revenue that can be drawn from the wealthy without crippling the economy, so in time, middle incomers will feel a bigger bite, too.
So the headline on the homepage reports Big Tax Hikes, saying the Middle Class Is About to Feel the Pain. It takes two clicks in to find out that this is based on sheer speculation. A theoretical prediction about the future of the economy and what the government will do about it. The tax increases are "all but certain," which means of course: "nothing but uncertain."
I guess getting people scared and angry about imminent tax hikes boosts the click-through rate, even if those hikes are non-existent. This is what we're replacing newspapers with.