Kate Middleton ‘can’t get pregnant’?

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will not be able to raise a family of their own… That is, of course, if you blindly believe in headlines.

Deceptive headlines and sensationalism are the bread and butter of most gossip publications you'll find at the local supermarket – strategically placed next to the checkouts for maximum impact.

And while the majority of these headlines are anything but creative (one has to wonder if the only thing they change with every new issue is the name of star to be defamed) they are pretty effective at attracting people’s attention – and money, of course.

As anyone who doesn’t belong to one of those lost tribes that they keep finding in the Amazon rainforest knows, the couple of the moment is none other than Kate and Will, The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (Brangelina are so yesterday's news).

And so, in order to make the most of their momentum (at least until people start caring about Lindsay again), gossip publications have been getting busy producing royal couple-based headlines. Who cares if they are true or not, what’s important is that they don’t deviate from the proven formula:

Celebrity names = “Will & Kate”
Sensationalist headline = “Baby Heartbreak”
‘Reliable’ source = “Royal doctor confirms”
Explaining the headline for those who didn’t get it = “She can’t get pregnant”

If the people working on the cover are feeling particularly inspired, they might also add another melodramatic line (with a long adjective, preferably). Let’s say: “The devastating news rocks their marriage”.

And hey, why not blow to smithereens any chance of happiness for the celebrities in question with a bomb like: “PLUS: Why they can’t adopt.”?

So what we end up with is basically:

But In Touch Weekly is nothing but the latest in a long list of publications and websites to feature a royal couple-related headline that sounds as honest as an Arnold Schwarzenegger book on the importance of fidelity in marriage (Arnie jokes are in, you see).

Please find, for your reading pleasure, some of our ‘favourite’ Royal-related headlines:

“A baby for Kate & William. Pregnant Bride!”
Hold on, so if she ‘can’t have babies’, how come she was pregnant before the wedding?

“Diana would be so proud of her son”
How do they know? Did they call her? Hope they used a prepaid ‘very-long-distance’ calling card.

“Royal romance in ruins. Fed up with waiting for the prince to set the date, Kate’s caught cozying up to his best friend’s brother”
So Kate was ‘cozying’ up to the brother of Will’s best friend? Or to her best friend’s brother, and the shocking news is that she is really a he?

“The real Kate. Wild nights at drinking clubs”
Glad we found the real Kate! Now we only have to destroy that evil cyborg sent from the future to destroy Prince Will that looked exactly like Kate – except that the robot didn’t go to ‘drinking clubs’.

“Princess in crisis. Drunk in public. The old-fashioned queen is embarrassed by Kate and her partying family”
Apparently ‘journalists’ nowadays carry breathalysers with them... Just in case they run into a ‘Princess in crisis’.

“Royal Wedding Disaster. William & Kate split! How scheming Camila tore them apart”
It seems like ‘scheming’ Camila’s plan to split Will and Kate was not that great after all... Considering they got married and all.

“Her royal tightness. See Kate’s flash on night out with the girls”
Great flash, by the way. It’s perfect for her new SRL camera.

One could argue that these are public figures and, as such, should deal with the positive and the negative aspects of fame. But does that also mean that the public should put up with half-truths aimed at selling more issues?

In the end, who’s guiltier: the publications or the consumers?