• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Clickbait Taking Over "Journalism"

rockysmith76 said:
yesterday a walrus attack and sunk a russian navy boat, post-clickbait.... an inflatable zodiac style raft, left that part out.

This ran with a few different major sources, CNN, FOX, etc
Click to expand...

I like to read those headlines and make up my own story. In my version a walrus strike team fired rocket launchers from the shore, hitting an aircraft carrier below the waterline.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I like to read those headlines and make up my own story. In my version a walrus strike team fired rocket launchers from the shore, hitting an aircraft carrier below the waterline.
Click to expand...

I didn't think the russian navy had any operable carriers.
 
ponderingturtle said:
I didn't think the russian navy had any operable carriers.
Click to expand...

Of course they don't, they keep getting sunk by walruses. That's the tenth one this year. Soon Russia will abandon its coastline and retreat inward to its steamy jungles, leaving the abandoned territory to the walruses. Their last hope was that whale spy of theirs, but his cover was blown before he could infiltrate the walrus command. They're Putin on sad faces in Russia now, nothing to be Vlad about there.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Of course they don't, they keep getting sunk by walruses. That's the tenth one this year. Soon Russia will abandon its coastline and retreat inward to its steamy jungles, leaving the abandoned territory to the walruses. Their last hope was that whale spy of theirs, but his cover was blown before he could infiltrate the walrus command. They're Putin on sad faces in Russia now, nothing to be Vlad about there.
Click to expand...

They have one and it was damaged when its dry dock sank. Clearly the walrus's involvement involves complex plans, not only is it out of commission but so are the repair facilities they would need!
 
dann said:
FTFY.
By the way, nobody has mentioned the trick where you divide an ordinary-length article into several very short ones so you have to click ten times to read it all, thus exposing yourself to ten times more advertising! NEXT.
Click to expand...

Oh yes. On the rare occasions when I allow myself to be clickbaited into "sponsored content" I hate that type of formatting. Not only do you have to click through 786 "pages" consisting of one or two paragraphs of the story, usually written so that you don't get to the actual point of the "story" (if there even is one) until page 786, the link to the next page is always buried among all the advertiser links, so that if you're not paying attention, you end up clicking the advertiser link. It's quite rare any more that I click on one of those things, and even rarer that I don't regret clicking on it when I do.
 
Foolmewunz said:
I think there was a REAL FAKE NEWS thread somewhere but damned if I can find it.

I've noticed a trend in CNN's headlines for over a year. They'll intentionally leave off a key word and post a clickable lead/headline that reads, say, "President Hiding Serious Illness" and you click it. How many of us would've clicked "President of Slobovistan Admits Suffering from Alopecia"?

Leaving key elements out of a lead is an old favorite device. "Devastating Crash Kills Seven - tape at 11" is sort of common. When it turns out that the "seven" is a family of ducks, we all kick ourselves for falling for it, yet again.

Today, though, I ran across something where not just the headline but the entire thrust of the article is dishonest.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/24/europe/german-court-hangover-disease-wellness-trnd/index.html

The clickbait read: A German Court Ruled That Hangovers Are An Illness

The headline read(still reads as of this writing): Rejoice, booze lovers. A German court ruled that hangovers are an illness

The actual story is not slightly but quite different. In an effort to stop a not-really-medicine-but-it-works campaign to sell a hangover "cure", they ruled that a hangover is a form of illness and making spurious claims about medical efficacy is illegal.

The headlines are spinning it into a formal go ahead to claim your hangover as a "sick day" or "excused absence". The court made no such declaration and an incidental line in a single case in a German trial is far from "scientific proof".

Tempest in a teapot, I know, but it just irked the crap out of me and I felt like venting and you, poor baby, are the one who got to listen to my rantings.
Click to expand...

Actually I enjoyed this one quite a bit. It's always nice when someone comes around to realizing that the mainstream media is not their friend.
 
theprestige said:
Actually I enjoyed this one quite a bit. It's always nice when someone comes around to realizing that the mainstream media is not their friend.
Click to expand...

You keep saying this as though it's a brilliant new revelation. And since you addressed it to my post, I can safely tell you that it's condescending in the vein of TBD's faux condescension.

"When someone comes around...."????? I've been a child of the counter culture for nearly six decades. I've often pointed out the absurdity of the Great Right Wing Noise Machine calling the MSM "left-wing". Mainstream is status quo is establishment is conservative. That should be pretty apparent.

I'm not talking about whether their opinions from on high can be trusted but whether their simple reporting has gone the route of yellow journalism in its modern version - clickbait. This is a nothing story but slightly interesting. A clueless talking head on a "features" channel and a reporter that stupidly fell for the angle tried to make it into some kind of "legal precedent" for winos to take days off. It has just about the same legal standing as the legal shenanigans in Miracle on 34th Street... "See the Post Office agrees, case closed." German workers don't need legal excuses to take a sick day. They have some of the most liberal working laws in the world.
 
Foolmewunz said:
Mainstream is status quo is establishment is conservative. That should be pretty apparent.
Click to expand...


It is not apparent to the conservatives who think that there are good people at Nazi rallies, but it is pretty obvious to everybody else.
 
dann said:
It is not apparent to the conservatives who think that there are good people at Nazi rallies, but it is pretty obvious to everybody else.
Click to expand...

Yep. Someone linked earlier to an expose of sorts. The NYT interviewed a half-dozen "swing voters" who were coming down against impeachment. They aren't swing voters at all, other than that they're in swing states and that they primp to get interviewed. One of them has attended twenty-three (23!) Trump rallies and still claims to be an independent. Another one has a pic of Robert E. Lee on his wall!

https://www.thewrap.com/ny-times-un...ame-trump-supporters-instead-of-swing-voters/
 
I was thinking about this (maybe not too deeply) but aren't the consumers of news ultimately to blame for the kind of news that the media focuses on? If more people click on stories that promise to show you a picture of Kim Kardashian's butt than stories about the war in Yemen, then in the long run the media will have to devote fewer resources to covering serious news and more to covering the things that people actually want to consume.
 
I’ve noticed recently that Clickbait has maybe reached a new level of ridiculousness.

One link said “This video will soon be banned. Watch before it’s deleted.” The thumbnail was just a picture of a woman sitting in a car. No hint as to what the video is about. Of course I don’t click on links like that because I already know that whatever it is, it’s just a waste of my time and attention. In another one, a YouTube video was just titled “Please watch this.” The thumbnail was just the word “Wow.”

Again, I ignored it. But I think this is the new trend in Clickbait. Mystery content. Not even a hint of what it might be.
 
Puppycow said:
I was thinking about this (maybe not too deeply) but aren't the consumers of news ultimately to blame for the kind of news that the media focuses on? If more people click on stories that promise to show you a picture of Kim Kardashian's butt than stories about the war in Yemen, then in the long run the media will have to devote fewer resources to covering serious news and more to covering the things that people actually want to consume.
Click to expand...

I'd say no. The news chooses to pimp itself out for more money.

If you agree that more people are interested in the crude base subjects than in more refined ones, than "more clicks" are already expected regarding KK's butt. It's a given, like more people consume Pepsi than champagne.

The problem as you present it is journalists saying "but I don't care about journalistic integrity! I just wanna be rich and popular!" To which I would retort "then why didn't your dumb ass get into investment or finance? That's where the money is, not in being a freaking column writer. As ye sow, bitch".
 
Last edited:
For a while I was getting a lot of ads for clickbait on YouTube. I kept reporting them. They've almost entirely stopped. I'd like to think I made a difference, but more likely YouTube just isn't sending them to me but everyone else still gets them.
 
The thing is I have to admit it takes willpower for me not to click on a lot of it - not because I believe the clickbait itself but to see what they are trying to flog me via the clickbait headline!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom