4 ms·
I wouldn't call it clickbait. It's a longform piece telling the story in a way that reflects the uncertainty that the locals feel.
by athenot 8y ago
I wouldn't call it clickbait. It's a longform piece telling the story in a way that reflects the uncertainty that the locals feel.
- mieseratte 8y agoI called the headline clickbait. I never said TFA is garbage, but the headline certainly is.
- athenot 8y agoThe headline mirrors the article's portrayal of the quest to find out the truth. If the article was just a few paragraphs long, I would have felt slighted. But as such, it read more like a mini-novel/documentary.
- mrob 8y agoAnd of course, it's pure coincidence that the headline is perfectly tuned to cause fear to small-town Georgia residents and to their friends and family elsewhere, and the extra page views and ad revenue from people worried if it's their town are of no relevance whatsoever.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoIf there were a viable news business that allowed local journalists to investigate the issue, perhaps this wouldn't have happened, or have been uncovered earlier.
- jcranberry 8y agoThe point is it's an investigation not a conclusion. The author heavily focuses on pollution in the area being a possible cause, and points out inadequacy in investigation performed on and arguments against pollution being the cause. But all her evidence is anecdotal. The point isn't to assert that she is certain of the cause, it's to provide a spotlight on evidence which she has seen which has not been given adequate examination and the resulting suffering from what could possibly be preventable. The title is appropriate, not clickbait.
- mrob 8y agoThe title is clickbait, because it deliberately withholds key information to force readers to click. A non-clickbait title would be: "Pollution suspected of causing rare cancers in Waycross, GA"
- vectorEQ 8y agoconsidering something to be bait or not is subjective. so why argue on it ? :D wtf guys
- MrEldritch 8y agoWhile that's a solid point, I think a critical part of why people look down on "clickbait" is the additional ingredient of "withholds key information to force readers to click ... and that key information makes the content substantially less interesting than the headline implied." The reason we call it clickbait is because it implies that it would clearly not be something you'd want to click, were the hook left unbaited. Otherwise, it's not all that bad - just clever headline choice. (The point of headlines has always been to intrigue prospective readers, after all.) Since this article is a substantial piece of journalism that remains interesting if you know the tl;dr, rather than an insubstantial chunk of #content, I don't think it really counts as clickbait.
- mrob 8y agoThe key information does reduce the expected level of interest. Controversy about cancer clusters and pollution is nothing new. But there are other possibilities, e.g. it might be caused by some genetic disorder that's found in a family who happens to live there, and the article might be about identifying and diagnosing that. It might be about some infectious disease that causes cancer like HPV. It might be about a cultural practice, e.g. eating carcinogenic foods like hijiki seaweed. Unless you actually live there, or know somebody who does, all these are more interesting to read about than the real "residents say it's pollution, industry says it isn't, everybody argues but nothing is really decided" story that's happened so many times before.
- telchar 8y ago