Journalists are using more and more desperate tactics to gain your attention every day. It seems at times that the media is more focused on grabbing your eye than reporting on anything that is truly newsworthy. Lazy clickbait articles are going to be the death of the honest reporting that real journalists like me do every day. Here’s five reasons why!
1. The Style Dwells on Desperate Fucking Attempts to Sound Relatable and Cool
Ooh, look at me, I’m an author that curses and uses Simpsons references, people just love my snarky take on things. Well what does that matter if you don’t actually have anything to say? Get out of here, you Poochie-ass fake internet writer. Real reporters have real reporting to do.
2. These Articles Often Include No Actual Content or New Information
That’s right, quite often no actual research or opinions are provided in these pieces. I come across a lot of articles that read like a bunch of fluff the author is providing merely to reach their minimum word count. It’s really, really, really, really, shitty.
3. None of These “Articles” Even Matter
Think about the world we’re living in. Literally every day brings a new crisis of some kind. Aren’t there enough important things happening all around us that we shouldn’t be taking time out of our day to read some stupid made up list on some idiotic website? I can’t tell you how to spend your time, but I know I have better things to do.
Related: Fake News Must Be Stopped Unless It Supports My Wildly Inaccurate and Misinformed Beliefs
4. Lists are not news!
Lists are just one of the tricks that lazy internet journalists use to convince people they aren’t reading a piece where no actual information is being presented. I’m sure you already understand this, being an intelligent reader and everything, but just in case, here are some of those methods to be on the lookout for:
- Lists
- Complementing the Reader
- Strong language
- Repeating the same points
- Bullet points within a subheading
- Lists
- Repeating the same points
5. These Articles Almost Always Have an Abrupt and Unsatisfying Ending
Article by Mark Roebuck, @mark_roebuck