It seems like all the newspapers or their online counterparts are just pro trolls, is that journalism now?

How does that make them money?

People read an article, are outraged, post a link somewhere in social media land for others to see, they are then outraged, process repeats.

A website with a massive number of hits can command large advertising revenue….

That’s how it’s working for the daily wail – exactly as tomhoward says. Troll something, get it indignantly shared on FB, friends click through, create high traffic, sell ads, make money. Staggering to see how people are taken in by it all.

EDIT: Thanks mikewsmith – that’s the piece I’d seen.

and unfortunately many many people are sucked in by it

Relevent

Sad times

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Daily_Mail
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Daily_Mail#Link_bait
There is a better article out there somewhere.

In general if you remove the Daily Mail (express and a few others) from the mix there is a difference between Journalism and Editorial/Opinion pieces. It’s something that is playing out over here in Oz where the murdoch based press is hammering the national broadcaster in opinion and editorial (and in news in the trashy tabloids) the higher end stuff is still good journalism but then you add an editorial to bash someone next to the real news.

In the end of the day sites rely on traffic, same as circulation of real papers so that the ads that people pay for get seen. The DM’s approach is to make a large number of stories that will be shared/linked etc. with very deliberate headlines to draw you in – or the local paper doing a “HATE CYCLISTS” piece knowing it will get linked all over the place (there is no such thing as bad publicity) as you click the link and the plan then is you will stay on the site longer, soak up the ads and maybe come back.

http://www.datadial.net/blog/index.php/2013/04/03/how-the-daily-mail-became-the-worlds-most-read-newspaper/

Good news never sells

I’ve nothing sensible to add.

I blame everyone called Jeremy (apart from Beadle)

Fundementally and perhaps too simplistically shit doesn’t sell if we’re all on the same side. We buy more of one thing and even promote it if there’s a ‘them’, who we’ve been made not to like, buying the other thing.

Does that make sense? It did to me before it left my head.

How does that make them money?

It doesn’t – pretty much all the major newspapers lose money and have been losing money for years. The Independent has never, ever made a penny of profit in its whole history, the guardian was losing £100,000 a day recently, Newscorp loses £1.3billion a year across all its titles. Newspaper proprietors aren’t in it for the money, they’re in it for the influence.

I’ve nothing sensible to add.

Troll Hunter – great film

did someone say professional troll?

This is a very astute observation.

The basic answer is yes, they are trolls. Underneath, they all are, and forever have been. Troll flamebait news sells.

Tabloids are most obvious, but locals are just as bad, just lower budget.

They actually do play very fast and loose with ‘the truth’ to get the troll story out the door before any real facts come to light.

And unfortunately, a lot of politics is driven by this and the publics reaction to it, rather than rational and practical thinking and debate. It is really quite sad

Reading Flat Earth News at the moment. Pretty interesting dissection of what’s wrong with the press. And it’s got worse since that was written.

It’s a local paper that’s pushed my buttons with a recent story about a “lunatic cyclist” which is blantently inflammatory and intended to appeal to the Clarkson esgue indignant motorist readership.

A complete non story that will just risk increasing road conflict.

But you see it everywhere, the Independent is pretty blatant, I don’t read the Mail but can imagine they do it. Could the paid newspapers (Times for instance ) be less likely to do it as they rely less on adverts?

If not are there any publications which don’t overtly do it or so just that every story is judged by clicks?

It’s a local paper that’s pushed my buttons with a recent story about a “lunatic cyclist” which is blantently inflammatory and intended to appeal to the Clarkson esgue indignant motorist readership.

I’ve worked on quite a few local rags and I’d suspect it’s more likely that the editor is just a dickhead than deliberate trolling a la Daily Mail.

I hope you’ve already drafted your letter of complaint anyway, and tell us which paper so other local STWers can get in on the act.

😉

Sorry, what? I was listening to Woman’s hour.