The headline says one thing. Paragraph nine says another.

Quick answer: Read the headline, then find the one sentence in the story that backs it up. Compare the verb, the number, the subject and the timeframe. If any of the four doesn't match, the headline is selling something the story isn't.

The person who wrote it didn't write the story

A reporter files a story. An editor, often a different one, writes the headline. Sometimes it gets rewritten again for the homepage, and again for social media. Many sites test two or three versions and run whichever gets more clicks.

So the headline and the story are frequently two separate pieces of work by two separate people, and only one of them spent three days on the facts.

That's not an accusation. Headline writers get roughly sixty characters and a few seconds. Squeezing a nuanced story into that space is hard, and some of them do it honestly. But the gap is real, and you're the only one in a position to check it.

Two stories that are the same story

Take a made-up example. Nothing below is a real article.

A city council passes a budget. Last year's police budget was $100 million. This year's is $102 million. The department asked for $110 million.

One outlet runs: "Council Denies Police the Funding They Asked For." Another runs: "Council Boosts Police Budget."

Both headlines are defensible. Neither is the full story, and a reader who sees only one walks away with the opposite impression from a reader who sees only the other. Swap in schools, the Pentagon or a border program and the trick works the same in both directions. It belongs to no party.

The fix is the same either way. Skip to the numbers inside the story. What was it last year? What is it now? What was requested? A headline that points the reader at only one of those three is doing a selective job.

Four things to compare

Pull the headline apart and check these against the story.

• The verb. "Slams," "blasts," "admits," "destroys," "caves." Then find what the person actually did. Often it's a sentence of mild disagreement or a statement that came with a qualifier. "Admits" is the sneakiest. It implies the person was hiding something, and the story may show they said it openly.
• The number. Does the figure in the headline appear in the story? Is it a total, a percentage or a change? "Prices up 40 percent" and "Prices up 40 percent from a low base two years ago" are different stories.
• The subject. Who did the thing? A headline may say "Republicans" or "Democrats" where the story says one member of one committee. It may say "Scientists" where the story says one study of 200 people.
• The timeframe. "Crime surges" might mean this month against last month. "Wages fall" might mean over a decade. Check the dates in the story and ask whether they were chosen to flatter the point.

Where the contradiction hides

Look at paragraph eight or nine. Look at the last third.

Stories are built like a pyramid, with the claim up top and the qualifiers below. A careful reporter puts "but" and "however" and "the study didn't control for" deeper down, because most readers will have left by then. A sloppy or aggressive headline takes the top and ignores the bottom.

Read the last few paragraphs first. If the story ends with "officials stressed there is no evidence that" and the headline implies the opposite, you've found it.

Words to circle as you read: alleged, could, may, up to, reportedly, according to, preliminary, associated with. Each one is the story admitting its limits. When the headline has none of them, ask where they went.

Three patterns to know on sight

The quote that shrinks. A made-up illustration: a headline reads "Senator: 'We Will Raise Taxes.'" The story, further down, has her saying that if the spending bill fails, the state would have to look at raising taxes. The quote marks are accurate and the meaning is gone. Always find the full sentence, then the sentence before it.

The study that "links." A made-up illustration: "Study Links Late Dinners to Heart Trouble." Inside, the researchers say they observed an association in people who reported eating late and that they can't say one caused the other. "Links" is doing a lot of work. Look for whether the researchers made a causal claim or the headline did. Also look for how large the effect was and who was in the sample.

The question mark. There's an old newsroom rule of thumb, called Betteridge's law, that a headline ending in a question mark can usually be answered "no." A question headline lets a publication hint at something without standing behind it. Treat the question as the claim, then look for the evidence.

Check your own side hardest

This is where the method earns its keep. Everybody scrutinizes the headline they dislike. Almost nobody scrutinizes the one that makes them nod.

So do it backwards. When a headline confirms exactly what you already believe about the other party, a school board, a company or a celebrity, slow down. That's the one most likely to get shared unread. If it holds up, good. You can use it with confidence. If it doesn't, you've saved yourself from repeating it at a family dinner and being corrected by your brother-in-law. It's also how you stay credible when you do argue for your convictions, because you never lean on a claim you haven't checked.

The same goes for opinion pieces dressed as news. A labeled opinion piece is allowed to argue. A news story with a headline that argues is a different matter. Our piece on the four questions an editor asks before a story runs covers what a headline should have to survive before it goes live.

The five-minute routine

Next time a headline makes you angry, glad or eager to forward it:

1. Write down, in your own words, what the headline claims.
2. Find the sentence in the story that supports it. Not a sentence on the same topic. The one that proves that claim.
3. Compare verb, number, subject and timeframe.
4. Read the last three paragraphs.
5. Look for a correction or update line at the top or bottom. How an outlet handles those says something too. See how to tell which outlets actually own their mistakes.

If you can't find the supporting sentence, don't share it. Not "share it with a caveat." Don't share it.

When the headline is fine

Sometimes you'll run the check and the headline holds. The verb is fair, the number matches, and the qualifiers are in the story where they belong. Credit it. A reader who only ever finds fault isn't a critical reader. They're just a cynical one, and cynics get fooled too, since they stop reading closely.

Part of why this matters is how headlines reach you in the first place. Your feed shows you the version that got clicked most, not the most accurate one. How your feed decides what you see explains why and what to do about it.

The story is the product. The headline is the invitation. Make a habit of checking that the invitation matches the house.