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"Clickbait" is an oft-used epithet on Soylent. Is the practice killing journalism?
In an age overwhelmed with clickbait stories, where clicks mean money, is mainstream journalism losing its relevance? And are there any alternative sustainable business models, which allow professional journalists the freedom to produce meaningful and balanced journalism?
These were some of the questions put to a panel of TV and radio directors from across the globe at the UNESCO's Journalism Under Fire Colloquium, recently held in Paris.
[...]
Jimenez argued that the click business model was poisoning media.
"We are often looking for stupid or irrelevant stories for large amount of clicks to increase our income," he said. "Look right now at the top newspaper websites and you'll find many stories about cats, about the different ways of cooking some meal, or whether Lady Diana was taller than her husband."
Giles Trendle, Al Jazeera's acting managing director, agreed that the media was challenged by the proliferation of new platforms and mediums.
But, he said, engaging with new technologies should not necessarily mean losing one's soul.
"Hold firm to your editorial principles, which is a valid business model in itself. We have to champion what we do as quality, credible, balanced journalism that is factual and comprehensive, and cherish our editorial integrity," Trendle said.
The fundamentals of "quality journalism" will eventually prevail over the low-grade "yellow journalism", he added.
Or is publishing corporate PR press releases as news more responsible?
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 15 2017, @03:24AM (1 child)
I dunno about you lot but I like to see a good clickbait article on SN every day or two. They generally piss someone off and really get the discussion down to the nut-cutting* in a hurry.
* For them of you not raised within a thousand miles of a real, live cow, that phrase means down to business or down to the heart of the matter.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Touché) by aristarchus on Saturday April 15 2017, @03:39AM
Live cows, huh? Not like you are trying to steer us in the wrong direction, towards bullshit, perhaps?
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday April 15 2017, @03:25AM (5 children)
I'm more likely to click on "Llama breast feeds kitten" than I am on "Why MOABs go all explody 10 feet above the ground". And I'm an informed news reader.
Problem is, I know why MOABs go boom 10 feet up. Haven't seen a llama feeding a kitten.
Dang. Sigh.
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @03:29AM (2 children)
/ I think
// you forgot
/// your usual sign off.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday April 15 2017, @03:36AM (1 child)
/ didn't think
// anyone
/// cared
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @09:42AM
/ you
// can't
/// win
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday April 15 2017, @03:43AM (1 child)
If you dropped Llama because of irrelevance and MOAB because it's already known you could used that attention span for something else..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @07:58AM
Knowing that a llama can breastfeed a kitten might be useful if you're a llama rancher who finds an abandoned litter of kittens on your ranch!
Having helped a stray ensure all her kittens survived one year, I can see utilities in even the more irrelevant stories, even if you don't see a point right then.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @03:27AM (7 children)
Every time I read a journalist's take with regard to a subject on which I am expert (e.g., I'm passionate about the topic, or deal with it every day), I'm left shaking my head at the incompetence and bias.
Then, it occurs to me that there's no reason for the journalism to be any better in any other given topic.
In my opinion, when it comes to any topic that isn't strictly a matter of everyday experience, you can basically assume that the journalist has done a very poor job indeed. After all, his work is not to report the Truth, but at best to get eyeballs on ads, or at worst to push some agenda (personal or paid).
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday April 15 2017, @03:39AM (6 children)
You don't have to be an expert, just be somewhat informed. Google "journalist guide to guns" or somesuch. Journalists can't be bothered to learn the facts when they have their beliefs to hang onto.
/sad
// truly
/// an AC made me add these slashies
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @05:48AM (5 children)
Journalists can't be bothered to learn the facts when they have their beliefs to hang onto.
Possibly. But nothing like the desperate clinging of a true ammosexual when someone says "auto" when they should have said "semi", and nothing like a trucker when they said "semi" when they should have said "tractor-trailer unit". But mostly the ammosexuals cannot be bother to learn basic things, like the fact that not everyone is obsessed with lethal weapons and has a small penis.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @05:51AM (4 children)
What a fucking idiot, no wonder you people lose every argument you have.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday April 15 2017, @06:35AM (3 children)
no wonder you people lose every argument you have.
Reading comprehension is the first step. It is very useful when it comes to trying to write what you mean to say! The Trivium of the Classical Liberal Arts (The arts of a Free person, STEM is for slaves!) were Logic (how to think), Grammar (how to access information and transmit), and finally, Rhetoric, public speaking, which in this case includes posting on the internet!
So, my dear idiot AC, drawn like a moth to the flame by the prior AC's accusation of "ammosexualism", you have said that "you people" lose every argument: I read that as referring to the "ammosexuals". Am I wrong in this? Perhaps you could be more specific, maybe including something about what "arguments" your are referring to, since I see nothing of that in the prior posts as well, only some accusation of journalists being ignorant of the object of obsession of ammosexuals.
Please try again. The ability to convey one's meaning in a convincing way is one of the signs of a free person, a liberal, who is a member of a liberal democracy! God less America!!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 15 2017, @12:49PM (2 children)
Reading comprehension is the first step.
A second is to say nothing when you have nothing to say.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @03:58PM (1 child)
Aww ze po baby doesn't wike his gwammar cwiticized. Next time say boo boo gaga and we can skip wight over did part.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:30AM
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday April 15 2017, @03:40AM
It's been a long time since mainstream journalism had relevance for input into thinking and decision making. They are irrelevant and largely incompetent or at least that what is allowed to be published. Both relevance and trust is gone and ain't coming back. It's like asking if Kreuger is less rich today, well yeah..
There are huge structural problems in the media sector where the signal to noise ratio is worthless and in addition it's often misleading. Owner concentration makes it almost impossible to act with independence and thus it all become a grey goo. Depth competence in fields that are treated also lack severely. The corporate owners also simple can't resist the urge to use their media ownership to manipulate their audience. Well don't even try that because it ends with - no confidence. (Hello Turner!)
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday April 15 2017, @03:57AM (6 children)
I have found out the hard way that to keep your ethics, you lose your shirt.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Saturday April 15 2017, @04:02AM (5 children)
I have found out the hard way that to keep your ethics, you lose your shirt.
But if you lose your ethics, you lose your soul! So you must chose: do you want something on your back, or something underfoot?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Saturday April 15 2017, @05:29AM (3 children)
I'll keep my soul as long as I can.
I don't really have to have any fancy cars, clothes, eateries, and junk from the mall stores.
Come to think of it, its been several years since I've been to the mall. Nothing there I really want anymore. Just a bunch of businessmen selling the same stuff I find in garage sales. I used to go there for the food, but they kept hiking the price until I finally cut it out. Two dollars for a cup of soda? Good Gawd! I make that stuff at home for pennies with a cylinder of CO2, a soda bottle, and some tire fittings.
It does not take all that much money to live on once one learns to stop spending for stuff they really don't need.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by lentilla on Saturday April 15 2017, @08:57AM (2 children)
"Two dollars for a cup of soda?" It's not the soda - it's the experience.
It's all very well to sit in a backyard and make two cent sodas but sometimes friends need a "third space" to meet up and chat. Sometimes that involves an over-priced soft drink, over-priced coffee, or over-priced beer. Best to consider it the price we pay to make and keep those friends that later pop over for a glass of that cheap soda at your place. It's an indirect investment into being a successful social animal.
I'll be the first to agree that our society has an unhealthy addiction to buying unnecessary things. There is; however; a middle ground to be found. Don't fixate too strongly on the price of an item without considering the total value received - in the case of this two buck soda, whilst you get the soda the real value is the excuse to spend time with friends.
Don't be too disheartened, that two dollars (in part) helps employ the shop staff, the business-owner, the mall, the truck driver, the sugar farmer, and so on. It's not a complete waste.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @02:04PM (1 child)
It's an indirect investment into being a successful social animal.
The term "social animal" is positively nauseating. In any case, there are plenty of other ways to achieve that besides buying expensive junk. I guess no one was a "social animal" before movie theaters, malls, and convenience stores.
Don't fixate too strongly on the price of an item without considering the total value received - in the case of this two buck soda, whilst you get the soda the real value is the excuse to spend time with friends.
You don't need an excuse to do that, and there are plenty of cheaper excuses anyway.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by lentilla on Saturday April 15 2017, @02:46PM
Of course people were social before the advent of theatres and shopping centres! I have it on good authority that in my prehistoric grandfather's day, something called the "Ooonga Boonga" dance was all the rage. Actually, Pops met my Grandma at one of those dances!
Apparently, my grandfather had a cousin who pompously declared "I'm not going Ooonga Boonga dancing - tonight, or any other night! It's soooo stuuupid! I can work up a sweat much more easily than going to a dance - I can jump up and down on the spot, all without leaving my nice, comfy cave!
The family history doesn't mention much about Grandfather's cousin after that - it seems he never had any children. Apparently, all those hot cave-women rather liked Ooonga Boonga dancing.
Every age has its price of entry, and it isn't always exactly rational.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday April 15 2017, @04:30PM
You're confusing ethics with morals.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Saturday April 15 2017, @04:52AM
The "powers that be" (Thanks J.Whedon ;-) don't care what the media publishes as it distracts nicely from their running the world how they want it.
Some comments can be useful, when bringing a unique point of view or experience to bear on a subject.
The real problem is the dogma driven echo chambers - opinion replaces fact, and the expectations of the public become more polarised.
Not sure if I have any further insights at this hour...;-)
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday April 15 2017, @04:36PM
Clickbait isn't killing the newspapers, the newspapers are killing the newspapers, especially online. Seizure-inducing ads, gray text on a white background (I've seen gray on gray, what morons!), teensy type... most newspapers should fire their ebtire onlibe staff and hire someone with a brain.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience