Betteridge’s law of headlines

This rule of thumb was coined by technology journalist Ian Betteridge: “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”

It’s the assertion that if the writer were confident in the answer, they would write a statement instead.

Confidence, however, isn’t decided until after a piece is written. While starting a venture with confidence would be nice, it isn’t a prerequisite for most things.