06.07.14
MasturBaiter: The new web ‘journalism’
In the web environment made by Google and corporate America, clickbait reigns supreme. Working example, above, on the Yahoo news page, about 50 percent of which on any given day constitutes virtually fake news and useless career and lifestyle advice columns written by people, all of whom have smiling thumbnail photos in which they look almost exactly alike.
Has Russia banned the US from the International Space Station, tantamount to almost an act of war? No. But that’s the point of the weasel-worded headline, to get you to think so.
The link takes you to stock-picking advice column by Rich Smith who begins: Oh, no. Russia is mad at us again.
His bio is here but you don’t have to read it to know he’s a jerk off.
This week the Los Angeles Times held its yearly awards dinner. A friend of mine won one for copy editing. It’s a big deal.
Copy-editing and integrity still mean something, most of the time, at big newspapers. Someone caught writing a clickbait piece like the above would stand a good chance of being pulled off their beat and their career blighted in, at least, the short term.
And a copy editor would suffer for putting such a title on a piece, or waving it through.
But web news jerk-offs are now way more than a dime a dozen. It’s the economic model everyone is convinced is gold.
Let’s have a look at Upworthy today, to see what’s brewing at the pinnacle of click masturbaiting:
Haven’t Classic Children’s Stories Always Been About More Than What They’re About?
The author: “I’m a father, writer, and singer/songwriter (see label for actual order). I get it: Time is precious, every life is precious, this little blue marble is precious. We all want the same things, really. But, um, how do we do that? Let’s see if the Internet knows…”
A Pixelated Nietzsche Warns Us About The Danger Of Looking To Science For All The Answers
The author: “I was born in the hometown of Elvis and raised in the land of Mark Twain. I care about America, fairness, human beings, manners, and everyone’s right to be weird.”
This Illustration Of How Many Soldiers Died On D-Day Is Like A Kick To The Gut
The author: “By day I’m a transformative photographer and art therapist. At night, I sleuth the web for outrageously important stuff. I want you to be happier, smarter, healthier, and more generous.”
Oh Snap! The Government Just Got Put On Notice … By An 8th-Grader
The author: “I’m a poet and activist using my Internet unicorn powers for the greater good. I push myself and others to make a positive impact on their local and global communities. I believe the web is the one true equalizer in the world …”
If you look at all the writer bios on Upworthy, they have a common and numbing theme. Everyone is using all their power on the internet to make you, the nation and the world better and happier. They appear as little more than mannequins with smiley faces.
There’s another good way to characterize them: One note sincerity trolls.
“We see Upworthy as confirmation that the potential to have a broadly well-informed public still exists,??? Eli Pariser told New York Magazine back in March. You could have fooled me because I’ve never seen that potential.
The article goes on to explain Upworthy’s delivery is purposely like advertising, advertising specifically aimed at getting shares on social media, particularly Facebook. Pariser tells the interviewer he once worked for a college literary magazine, a model he then wished to avoid.
“Contributors,” or the writers aren’t just that. They’re also “curators” at Upworthy.
Curators of what? The best 3-second-to-minute-readable clickbait in hand-wringing sincerity, uplift and lessons for the day.
Moving along, we have Medium, the blogging platform started by the guy who made Twitter. Who then professed to have found that 140-character blurts don’t really constitute much in the way of information and journalism.
Roll it:
Holy shit, dude! How I accidentally lost 50 pounds in 8 months
The author: “Designer. Maker of things. Total weirdo. Husband to wife. Friend to startups. Avid fan: scary movies, loud music, lists.”
On Gradually Rebuilding My iTunes Library…
I wish I had an intern…The author: “Bostonian/Independent A&R/Blogger/Writer @ Poisonous Paragraphs/Bastard Swordsman/Producers I Know/HipHop Wired/The Urban Daily/Killer Boombox & NPR”
“Somtimes i feel that Medium is like taking a sh*t???
Which is great valueThe author: “UI/UX Designer.”
Listening to Russia’s State Media, It’s Hard to Tell Fact From Fiction
The Kremlin’s government-media complex spins the Ukraine crisisDelivered without a hint of national self-recognition, one might add.
Two Weeks Ago, I Almost Died in the Deadliest Plane Crash Ever
The author: “Pittsburgher San Franciscan. Economic consultant and writer. Loves politics, economics, comedy, poetry, and Stanford football.”
Today I’m Going to Predict Your Future
Five important things that will happen to you before your 20-year college reunionThe author: “Head of @WebbmediaGroup, an emerging tech ideas + strategy agency.”
Finally, we turn to Henry Blodget, the CEO of Business Insider, a former stock-pumping fraud criminal, who re-invented himself as one of the web’s top MasturBaiters.
In a recent interview:
Henry Blodget is infamous for hyping dot-com stocks before the crash. Now he has one of his own Henry Blodget is enjoying an impressive second act. Eleven years ago, his career as a high-profile Wall Street analyst imploded with the collapse of the dot-com bubble, when he was accused of promoting stocks publicly and disparaging them privately. He was banned for life from the investment industry … Business Insider is loud and brash – a “scrappy upstart,??? as Mr. Blodget puts it, aimed at a young audience – with headlines that scream and content that roams well beyond a core business readership. It now claims more U.S. readers than The Wall Street Journal.
There are quite a few mainstream-media journalists gravitating toward start-ups, such as FiveThirtyEight and Vox. Is this a new era for journalism–and where is it headed?
Blodget: We are in a golden age for journalism. The digital medium is by far the richest, most flexible and most powerful medium ever developed, and it is creating amazing opportunities for entrepreneurs and journalists who embrace it.
Is the comparison to the Wall Street Journal valid? No.
Blodget claims the “editorial budget” of Business Insider is 10 million dollars. It employs 50 people as editorial staff.
The Wall Street Journal employs about 2,000 people worldwide, has 85 news bureaus and 26 printing plants, including one in southern California. It’s the country’s largest newspaper with a circulation of over 2 million, not including its website.
The newspaper is valued at around 5 billion dollars and has won over 30 Pulitzers. Business Insider and Henry Blodget will never win a Pulitzer.
If the web metric that Business Insider reaches more people than the Wall Street Journal is accurate, this only illustrates that the former is indeed, largely, just a mass of clickbait.
Being part of a story on Business Insider is virtually meaningless compared to the WSJ. Chances are high, too, it’s merely recycled and chopped content from somewhere else.
Jeff Bezos is a big fan and bank-roller of Henry Blodget, mostly for reasons having to do with the latter having hyped Amazon stock early on.
After Bezos bought the Washington Post, he sent Blodget to the paper to tutor its journalists in the ways of web news success. It would have been entertaining to see the rolling eyes, to hear the water-cooler talk after Blodget was no longer in earshot.
“We’re doomed,” somebody probably said.