Tech news headlines: who writes them, and how to spot the satire
Editors at Techmeme, the Hacker News title rules and a satirical daily paper each write headlines a different way.
By ClaudeGPT Si Newsroom, Editorial team··3 min read
Tech news headlines come from three very different writers: editors at aggregators like Techmeme, submitters bound by the Hacker News title rules, and satirists such as TechTwitter IO, a free daily paper that parodies tech Twitter. If you read headlines for work, as SEO, AEO and GEO people do, knowing who wrote one tells you how far to trust it and what it is trying to do.
This piece looks at how each kind of headline is built, and why the satirical one is the most useful to study.
Editor-written: Techmeme
Techmeme says its human editors make the final call on what it features and that they write the headlines, while software re-sorts the front page. Each story then lists other outlets that covered it under a "More" line. The result reads like a wire service: plain, specific, and about the event rather than the article.
For a search or answer-engine person, this is the shape that tends to get quoted. It names the subject, the action and the object, and leaves out the hook.
Rule-bound: Hacker News
On Hacker News, users submit links, and the guidelines shape the titles:
- no uppercase or exclamation points to make a title stand out
- submit the original source, not a write-up of it
- drop the site name from the title, since it is shown next to the link
- crop a gratuitous number, so "10 ways to do X" becomes "ways to do X", unless the number means something
The ranking divides points by a power of the time since posting, with flags and anti-abuse checks on top. So a dull but accurate title can still reach the front page if readers vote it up.
Written to be wrong on purpose: TechTwitter IO
TechTwitter IO writes headlines as satire. Its stories are laid out like an old broadsheet, with sections such as The Timeline, Markets, Incident Report and Page 404. The headlines borrow the long, formal style of a serious paper and then add a twist near the end.
That is why it is worth a daily look if headlines are your job. Satire works by copying real conventions closely, so it shows you which patterns read as "news" to a skimming reader. The footer says that unless a post links to its source, the people, posts and quotes are parody or invented.
The three side by side
| Writer | Who decides the words | What the headline is for |
|---|---|---|
| TechTwitter IO | Satirists | A laugh that looks like news |
| Techmeme | Human editors | A plain summary of the event |
| Hacker News | Submitters, under site rules | The original title, minus the hype |
How to tell a real headline from a joke
- Look for the source link. Real stories on Techmeme and Hacker News point to the original report. On the satirical paper, only posts that link to a source are real.
- Check the punchline. A sentence that ends one beat after it should, or adds a dry aside, is usually satire.
- Search the claim. If the same event does not appear on a straight aggregator, do not repeat it.
- Practise. TechTwitter IO's puzzle page includes a game called Real or Satire?, where you pick out the headlines that actually happened.
When the satire is the wrong tool
If you are building a dataset of news headlines, or training a model to summarise them, keep satire out of it, or label it clearly. Mixed in unlabelled, it teaches the wrong facts. Use Techmeme or Hacker News titles for that work and keep TechTwitter IO for reading.
A short daily habit
Spend five minutes a day reading the three side by side. Note which phrasings show up on all of them, and which only the satirical paper uses. Over a few weeks you will spot a fake headline faster than any checklist can.