We, the public, should reject outright all stories with link-bait headlines.
Compare the two headlines from Huffington Post and The Chive below to the one from The Verge. Notice a difference? The first two rely on that abominable technique of leaving out a key piece of information to make the reader curious. On the HuffPo article, you're forced to think "What was the mistake??" On The Chive one, it wants us all to wonder what was the idea about?
The Verge's headline, in contrast, offers up the key facts as a proper journalistic headline should.
If we wanted to rewrite the Verge headline to use the same awful technique as the first two, it'd probably turn out something like: "Google makes Photos better with this one weird trick."
The purposeful obfuscation of headlines in order to drive traffic is an appalling trend and one we should all reject by never clicking on them. The same should be said for overtly hyperbolic headlines (e.g., 'Trump campaign devastated by new leaks' -- the word "devastated" shouldn't be used in headlines unless a massive earthquake took out a significant city...then it's appropriate).
Seriously, until we hold "news" sources to a higher standard, we're never going to have better news sources. And until we start drawing a clearer line between news sources and entertainment/opinion outlets, we will continue to have people confusing/conflating the two.
My thoughts exactly. Lately, I have been avoiding clickbait headlines even from reliable sources. I'm always disappointed by the content when I fall for the clickbait.
ReplyDeleteOh, you're way too late, Craig Froehle
ReplyDeleteOur new instant messaging world is just advertising on steroids.
The medium is the message.
Click-bait exists because there's no reward for good articles, just for briefly diverting the attention of the reader. Blame Google Ads.
ReplyDeleteEli Fennell Presuppose or recognize? :-)
ReplyDeleteSearch does one thing, Ads does another.
My Google Now news feed is filled with clickbait and fake news. I have no idea what to do about it (it seems to think I am only interested in Tesla, block chain, and James Corden) and shows me the same "story" repeatedly from unknown websites around the world so I see one headline reappear for days as it 'flows' around the world (I've seen the Elon Musk 5th grader article at least 5 times over the past few days).
ReplyDeleteWhy is Google Now pushing this clickbait?
And does anyone know how to let it know that that the one search I made on blockchains months ago gave me all the information I need for the foreseeable future?
Yeah, I've complained about headlinitus (my word for this) for a while. Problem is, some of it is good some of it isn't so I still have to check. Gah. Hate hate hate hate this.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point. But I'll play the contrarian, Newspaper's are going out of business due to lack of readership, which results in loss of advertising dollars. Even online news has to maintain a budget. The 'hook' is used to get your attention, true. It brings you to the page and exposes you to advertiser's as you read the story. On the other hand, legitimate news has to compete with the likes of Breitbart and others that will fabricate stories to get that "click."
ReplyDeleteI also try to avoid the click-bait articles, mostly because I've found that the missing detail isn't worth clicking through to read the article. However, I don't think click-bait headlines are all that new. This practice goes all the way back at least as far as the nightly TV news. For those of us who remember watching broadcast television w/o skipping over the commercial breaks, I'm sure you've all heard teasers like, "A surprise in the City Council race, details at 11." Click-bait headlines are the same technique in a new medium.
ReplyDeleteDan Thompson When I was a boy ( sixties) TV news was more of a public information service, provided for the use of "public" airwaves. It was not a profit making , commercials driven program that went on for 24 hours a day. Now it is commercialized, and we are bombarded with advertising on "paid" cable and satellite. The FCC, is corporate controlled now. If you remember, at the beginning, cable TV was billed as commercial free.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, if I were to swear off any news article with a click bait headline at this moment of time, I would hardly find anything to read. I have found good content under bad headlines. I use the source instead of the headline to judge the likelihood of getting decent content out of the, er, contents.
ReplyDeleteThis is the result of AB testing. en.wikipedia.org - A/B testing - Wikipedia
ReplyDeleteIt can almost be completely automated now, but it was found by accident and now has become common practice. The shield/sword analogy is worthless against it because as soon as people start to avoid the headlines which are click-bait, they click something new, and the new archetype is the new "winning" archetype.
You don't even have to open click-bait articles for them to be damaging. The headline alone is often enough to get poorly educated people riled up, and they'll often restate the headline as a fact in later talks without bothering to read the article for its supporting evidence or lack thereof. Sadly, these types of headlines aren't going anywhere any time soon, unless we suddenly start implementing a minimum IQ rating to get an internet connection.
ReplyDeleteBrad D The only "IQ" that is required is money. Search engines have the ability to filter out lies, and click bait stories which are influencing the electorate. But then again they profit from it, don't they.
ReplyDeleteCraig Froehle has beaten Fake News with this one weird trick!
ReplyDeleteJohn Lewis A/B testing is an excellent means of achieving local maxima. What it utterly fails at is recognizing that local maxima may be separated by a narrow valley from a much higher mountain. A/B testing might tell you the headline that will generate the most revenue from the people currently visiting your site. What it can't tell you is whether this approach will lead to the long-term destruction of your brand.
ReplyDeleteI blame the fetishization of short-term shareholder value and the myth that corporations have a fiduciary responsibility solely to those shareholders.
1. Block fuckwits. Warn your friends, once, that you'll block them for clickbait shit. Then follow through.
ReplyDelete2. Block the websites at your router. DD-WRT has a really handy spamblock capability you can use for this.
3. Publish your blocklists. http://pastebin.com/6JwHkMz9
I cannot say enough how motherlovin' effective killing noise sources is. It's the weirdest trick ever.
pastebin.com - dd-wrt dnsmaq blockfile - Pastebin.com
Just a note, the Elon Musk story is almost exactly what it sounds like. The little girl came up with an idea for a commercial contest, Musk said he would do it. I find the emotionally manipulative words are the biggest clues of click bait. Those and pictures of women with improbably large or mathematically perfect breasts.
ReplyDeleteOMG YES! Thank you so much for this. This is something that has been driving me around the bend and back. I am glad that there are still some serious journalists out there (or editors that subscribe to real values).
ReplyDeleteEdward Morbius You should write an entire post on this with fool proof instructions.
ReplyDeleteI think the titles are well-crafted. If used properly and not used to completely manipulate emotions out of proportion, I would say that we need more article titles like them. Hear me out. One problem we have today is that many people feel like they get a sense of what an article has said primarily based on the title. They're too lazy to read, so they just take what they read from the headline and base conclusions from that. That leads to a lot of misinformed people. The travesty here is that most click-bait are blowing the headlines out of proportion to get revenue when all they really need to do is write about legitimate stories that people will actually care about. I rarely hate click-baitish titles where the story lived up to the hype of the headline. However, I do hate articles that have headlines that don't suit the content of the article. One other thing is that leaving out one important fact is a way of keeping a reader engaged while they look for that answer. A lot of articles are so bland and convey a lot of information with no single focal point. By having a headline like these, they automatically draw the attention to one single point and allow the rest of the fact to support that one missing piece. I have one more point, but you can read about it in the link in my bio.
ReplyDeletejk
The worst say... then see what happens. It's the old bait-and-switch.
ReplyDelete