5 ms·

While 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 r

While 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 7y ago
The 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 7y ago
When I was small we learned the inverted pyramid model of news, that the most important information should be at the top (the headline) and succeeding content should be ordered primarily in descending order of information significance. Did this change at some point? Or is this just tabloid practices infecting journalism in the era of maximizing clicks? I find the old model infinitely better especially as people tend not to read past headlines in most cases.
ryandrake 7y ago
> The point of headlines has always been to intrigue prospective readers, after all. Which would have been a better headline on, say 9/11? A: “U.S. Attacked - Hijacked Jets Destroy Twin Towers” B: “Something Awful Happened in NYC Today. Click here to find out what!”
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mrob 7y ago

The 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 7y ago

When I was small we learned the inverted pyramid model of news, that the most important information should be at the top (the headline) and succeeding content should be ordered primarily in descending order of information significance. Did this change at some point? Or is this just tabloid practices infecting journalism in the era of maximizing clicks? I find the old model infinitely better especially as people tend not to read past headlines in most cases.

ryandrake 7y ago

> The point of headlines has always been to intrigue prospective readers, after all. Which would have been a better headline on, say 9/11? A: “U.S. Attacked - Hijacked Jets Destroy Twin Towers” B: “Something Awful Happened in NYC Today. Click here to find out what!”

deleted 7y ago

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