Desperate Times Call for Desperate Headlines

An example of the finest journalism here, on the Daily Express website. The headline states: "Heading For The UK: 2m Desperate Romanians". However, the second and third paragraph say: "One in six 18 to 34-year-olds in one of the EU’s poorest countries say they see no future there and want to quit. Twenty-one per cent name the UK as their preferred destination, meaning up to 500,000 young Romanians want to move here."

Now, I understand that a headline is meant to make the reader want to read the full story but I would have thought that, given this recession, 500,000 was a scary enough number … and if one really wants to use the word "million" for sensationalim's sake, that number can be turned into "half a million desperate Romanians" and keep the headline accurate.