Romeltea Magazine

Clickbait is the lowest form of social media journalism, full of sensationalized headlines, grumpy cats, and awful personal confessions. Most pundits complaining about it say that it's a new invention for the short attention spans of the internet age. But that's not true. Clickbait's history goes back to the nineteenth century.

In this political cartoon from 1888, called "The Evil Spirits of the Modern Day Press," we see many of the same "evils" that social media supposedly invented in the past decade. There is "paid puffery," which is equivalent to paid content.

There are "bad pictures," which could be LOLcats; there are also "personal journalism," "scandal," "criminal news," "garbled news," and "boasting lies." Each of these, worded slightly differently, could be accusations about clickbait leveled at places like Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Gawker and Upworthy.

At the time, critics of these media evils called it "yellow journalism." The term came from a popular cartoon character called the Yellow Kid, who appeared in a comic strip in the New York World called Hogan's Alley.

In the nineteenth century, newspapers were fighting for circulation numbers, the same way social media sites compete for unique visitors or eyeballs today.

One surefire way to boost circulation was to have a popular comic strip, and World owner Joseph Pulitzer was crushing his competition, William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal, by running the adventures of the Yellow Kid. (Eventually Hearst bought Hogan's Alley from the World, in a ridiculous bidding war that makes Facebook's acquisition of Whatsapp look sane.)

Essentially, these papers were using LOLcats to get their circulation numbers up. The Yellow Kid was like grumpy cat, except human. He was a kid who lived in the slums, who would appear with wacky sayings on his nightshirt, usually written in broken English.



Instead of LOLspeak, you had slum talk — but the upshot was the same. People were buying these papers to read stupid cartoons, not to get the news. One critic called it "Yellow Kid journalism," but the phrase that stuck was simply "yellow journalism."

Last year, XKCD's Randall Munroe made fun of clickbait headlines by writing up an imaginary timeline of major events in the twentieth century and giving them headlines like "Avoid Polio with This One Weird Trick" and "17 Things that Will Be Outlawed Now That Women Can Vote." The joke is supposed to be that nobody in the twentieth century would have written such ridiculous headlines. But the real joke is that, except for the contemporary idioms, Munroe's headlines would have been perfect for yellow journalists.

Here are a few actual headlines from 1913, in The World, a yellow journalism paper run by Joseph Pulitzer:

• King Victor Shielded By His Queen From Assassin's Bullets
• "Oldest Crook" To End Days in the Prison He Loves
• Crowd Tries to Kill Would-Be Murderer
• Coffyn Carries Passenger in Air Trip About the Bay

Note that on the bottom there's a little box that says "Skirmish!" that details how much bigger this newspaper's circulation is than its rival papers, The World and The Herald. This is roughly equivalent to the way many social media outlets today proudly display the number of "likes" or "upvotes" or "uniques" next to each story.

Yellow journalism came of age during the period when William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal was competing for circulation numbers with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. Things got so heated in their war for eyeballs that both papers would take any opportunity to turn the boring daily news into sensational, Earth-shattering events. That's one way that the sinking of the U.S. vessel Maine in a Cuban harbor went from an accidental explosion to a possible attack by Spain. Here are famous covers from the Journal and the World, suggesting that the Spanish attacked the Maine in the harbor during talks between the two countries on neutral Cuban ground.

People on the scene, who examined the ship after the explosion, said that it likely originated inside the vessel. It was probably an accident. But tensions between the U.S. and Spain were already running high, and it was easy for journalists to turn a hard-to-diagnose explosion into a possible act of war. The U.S. State Department maintains to this day that "yellow journalism" helped instigate the Spanish-American War, which was fought mostly in Cuba and the Philippines.

It's interesting to consider that over a century ago, Hearst and Pulitzer's papers were considered largely yellow journalism enterprises. And yet now Pulitzer's name adorns the Pulitzer Prize, one of the most respected honors any journalist can receive. To get the full force of this irony, imagine that in fifty years, the most important award in journalism is called the Buzzfeed Prize or the Gawker Award.

If you want to consider the historical facts, rather than read the yellow journalism stories that sensationalize clickbait, then you'll be forced to accept that clickbait is nothing new. Journalists and news sources — even respectable ones — have always used trumped up headlines and dumb pictures to lure people into looking at what they've written.

Sometimes this practice is harmless, or even beneficial. Maybe people will come for the LOLcats but stay to read a piece of excellent investigative journalism or cultural analysis. In other cases, sensationalized news headlines and gossip can have extremely negative repercussions, fanning the flames of war or bullying innocent people. But to claim that clickbait is some nasty new disease cooked up by techies of the internet age is as shortsighted and ill-informed as clickbait itself.

Source: http://io9.gizmodo.com/a-history-of-clickbait-the-first-100-years-1530683235

When I wrote for The New York Times, I always admired how the editors could put a story in just the headline.

They still do, of course: “Credit Suisse Pleads Guilty in Tax Evasion Scheme.” “Russia Says It Pulled Troops, but NATO Sees No Sign.” “Mayor Tells City’s Tabloids to Apologize to His Wife.”

Those headlines are transparent and efficient. They’re good journalism.

Those headlines contrast sharply with the headlines we all know of as “clickbait” — teaser headlines that imply that if you click the link, you’ll be rewarded by something shocking, amazing, uplifting, or sexy.

Very occasionally, clicking turns out to be worth it, and you’re glad you bothered. More often, it’s a total fraud, and you’ve just wasted your time. Even at their best, clickbait headlines are shameless hype. At their worst, they’re downright deceptive.

Clickbait, of course, is a scheme to drive up a website’s traffic. It’s a modern spin on tabloid journalism. But it shows tremendous insecurity; if you have a good story, why do you have to overhype it?

And it’s costly to you, the reader/victim. Sometimes you’re deceived, and sometimes you can’t find the answer to the headline’s riddle without watching a video. Which wastes your time and, if you’re on a plane with glacial WiFi, frustrates you because you can’t find the missing element.

But you know what? Two can play this game. If they can tease us by publishing half-truthy, overhyped headlines, then I can burst their bubble by revealing the tantalizing secret of each one. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present: Pogue’s Clickbait Spoilers!


By David Pogue. https://www.yahoo.com/tech/you-have-no-idea-whats-behind-these-clickbait-86284798014.html

See also: Upworthy: Take Down That Autism Headline

You won't believe what some websites will do to get you to read their content.Actually, you probably will believe it. You probably know what they do, and you see it every day.

What's more, you probably fall for it.I'm talking about clickbait headlines, those headlines that we all recognize from our Facebook and Twitter feeds that tease us just enough so we HAVE to
click on the link.

It's the online version of "Film at 11 " that's been a trope of television news since the dawn of time.I spent more than a decade as a copy editor. I take a back seat to no one when it comes to appreciating a clever headline.

But clickbait resorts to cheap tricks.One example of these are the headlines that ask yes/no questions, implying that the answer can only be found if you follow the link. "Can Starbucks succeed in Italy?" "Does water have memory?"

My personal favorite: "Are testicle eating fish really coming to Britain?"

According to Betteridge's Law, the answer to all of these is "No." Ian Betteridge is a British tech journalist who developed this rule in a 2009 blog post.Sometimes the answer to these question headlines is "yes."

All too often, though, the headline writer is gaming the reader's curiosity in the name of cheap clicks.Clickbait headlines follow a few other patterns besides the yes/no question headline form.

Learn to recognize them:The use of "you," as in: "You won't believe how much this can of tuna costs"Words that imply literal destruction about something less dramatic: "Actor annihilates haters with one speech"Headlines that play on your emotions: "These 23 kittens will warm your heart."Sometimes you don't know until after you've clicked on the story.

If you feel profound disappointment and anger, it was probably clickbait.Unfortunately, clickbait works. I conducted an unscientific Twitter poll this week to see if readers preferred a straightforward headline or a clickbaity one.

The clickbait headline ("Are smart people from Berks moving away?) was more popular by far.The comics character Pogo was right when he said, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

Or, in modern headline parlance:"Nine words a cartoon character used to describe society and he nails it. No. 6 is epic."

By Adam Richter: arichter@readingeagle.com or 610-371-5045. On Twitter: @AdamRichterRE. - See more at: http://www.readingeagle.com/news/article/adam-richter-you-wont-believe-how-much-clickbait-headlines-manipulate-you

Judul Umpan Klik (Clickbait), yakni judul tulisan atau berita yang bermaksud agar diklik, merupakan jalan pintas mendapatkan pengunjung.

Namun, judu-judul sensasional yang cenderung menipu pembaca ini, hanya akan menurunkan kredibilitas dan lambat-laut ditinggalkan pengunjung.

OH, it’s the clickbait headline. We barely knew you before people started ignoring you, and it’s time for you to leave for good. But why? What is wrong with using clickbait headline?

Well, it sounded like a good idea at first. But the Internet is a place of excitement, where new things tend to take off, so a good way of getting clicks was to make titles more exciting. Except… a lot of companies failed to take growing user cynicism into account.

Let’s be honest here. A lot of companies go overboard when there’s a new ‘trick’ for internet marketing. Many of them are concerned that if they don’t jump on the bandwagon fast enough, one of their competitors will jump past them and cut into a majority of their sales.

However, users tend to recognize these tactics, though. That’s because companies push them so hard that people can’t avoid seeing the same thing over and over and over again.
And that’s a bit of a problem, because…

Problem #1: Clickbait Relies On Sensationalism

The average clickbait headline is like a person in a crowd jumping up and screaming, demanding to be heard. If there’s just one person doing that, then everyone’s going to pay attention to them.

However, most clickbait headlines only appear around other clickbait headlines. Whether it’s organic search results, posts in social media, or anywhere else they appear, clickbait tends to be grouped with other clickbait. Therefore, it quickly becomes an entire group of people all waving for the user’s attention.

Is it any surprise that most people’s reaction is to reflexively ignore the crowd, in the same way they’ve learned to ignore intrusive banner ads?

This problem has magnified when clickbait starts to intrude into other areas. For example, around the end of 2015, social media site Tumblr was flooded with clickbait posts that were tagged with things completely unrelated to their content.

As every good inbound marketer knows, inbound marketing is most successful when it finds people who are already interested in a subject, and not those who are deliberately and intentionally searching for something else.

If someone is looking for posts from their favorite television show, they aren’t going to be interested in clickbait headlines.

Worse, if the clickbait is pushed so heavily it crowds out everything else, which is what actually happened on Tumblr, where many searches returned nothing but clickbait until the administrators got it under control, people aren’t going to click. They’re going to leave, and they’re going to be very upset at whoever was intruding into their life that way.

Sensationalism is not a viable long-term strategy. If it’s only done every now and then, and not mixed in too much with other sensational material, then it might work. It’s a lot of time and money being spent on something users are learning to ignore, which is why sensationalism is the first big problem with this sort of headline.

Try This Instead: Ditch the sensationalism. Instead of trying to act like your content is the most amazing thing ever, tone it down and sound like a serious, professional company instead.

Problem #2: Clickbait Tends To Be Misleading

As part of its sensational nature, clickbait tends to promise an amazing story to anyone who clicks on it only to deliver content that’s mediocre at best. The article itself is rarely able to live up to the hype of the headline, and in many cases, provides no useful information to the person clicking on it.

It doesn’t help that this sort of headline tends to be as vague as possible. For example:


Essentially, clickbait headlines ask visitors to trust them, then they betray that trust as soon as the link is clicked. That’s not how you establish a positive reputation for a brand.

In fact, more likely than not, users are going to develop a negative opinion of your company as a direct result. They don’t even need to click the links anymore. Just seeing a clickbait headline is often enough to convince them to distrust wherever it links to.

People don’t enjoy having their trust betrayed. It’s as simple as that.

Try This Instead: Be honest with your headlines, and tell visitors exactly what they can expect from the content. For example, our own headline “Why Clickbait Headline Is Bad For Your Website” has a little bit of energy to it, but we were also careful to be clear about the content. Clickbait headlines are old news now, and we’re busy telling you why.

Problem #3: Clickbait Headlines Get Visitors, Not Customers

Even when clickbait headlines succeed at getting visitors to a site, it’s not necessarily going to help the company profit. When users find themselves unhappy with the content of the site, which is a very common reaction to clickbait, the first thing they’re going to do is leave.

This gives the page an extremely high bounce rate, and even those that do remain probably aren’t going to be interested in clicking on products, much less advertisements.

Companies should not be advertising with the intent of getting more pageviews. The concept of the sales funnel is that customers should be brought through the entire thing, not to bring them onto one page of the site and then abandon them. As a marketing tactic, clickbait is inherently self-defeating.

Try This Instead: Treat your headlines as the first step in getting visitors to move through your site. Don’t give them all the information they want on the first page they visit, but give them enough to make them feel like the visit was genuinely worth their time, and that continuing to browse your site will give even more value to them.

Examples Of Bad Clickbait Headlines

Any visitor with even the slightest amount of sense would realize that this headline was probably about somebody’s hobby. Perhaps they spend their time building model railroads or decorated the room in an interesting way. Either way, it’s a lot of hype with no particular reason to click on it.


Aside from the fact that most people don’t rent videos anymore, which instantly makes this headline a dated reference, and, therefore, irrelevant to the majority of the people reading it.

Also, it’s a little confusing. The key problem with this headline is its mix of emotions (sadness and fear), and its goal of encouraging people to find out how these are reconciled. Good headlines focus on one core idea and avoid conflicting terms.


Except that politely turning all but one down isn’t shocking to anyone, right? Clickbait headlines tend to love lists, often to the point that people assume any headline starting with a number is potentially clickbait.

The biggest problem with this headline, though, is that it gives absolutely no reason for the readers to click on it. Sure, maybe his reaction was shocking, but there’s nothing that makes it relevant to the reader. The best headlines suggest some sort of value (entertainment or otherwise) for the person clicking them.


“[Blank] hates him” is a classic clickbait format, suggesting that some (conveniently unnamed) person figured out the secret to easily accomplishing something.

On the other hand, ‘hate’ is a fairly negative term for a headline to have, and it’s certainly not going to bring people to the site with the expectation of making a purchase. This format promises something that sounds too good to be true, and it usually is.


This type of headline suggests a dark story that’s only now being brought to light, much like the sort of story you’d see on daytime television talk shows. This is another case where the actual story tends to fail to live up to the hype of the headline.


Conditions like Dissociative Identity Disorder affect quite literally millions of people each day, usually as the result of an abusive childhood.

Headlines that emphasize disorders associated real problems with being quickly ignored, and that’s a genuine negative for society. Today’s internet users care about the social aspect of things and headlines that could harm others are despised even more than most.


This sounds like nothing more than a tourism article designed to get people to visit a certain area. And once again, most users will see straight through it. It also has far too many words in it.

While the length isn’t too bad, good headlines should be concise and to-the-point. Fourteen words are far too long, especially in an era where mobile users (who have even shorter attention spans than desktop users) are an increasingly important part of the market.

Conclusion

Now that you already know what is wrong with the clickbait headline, you should avoid using it. It’s undeniable that clickbait title always lures people in entering your site.

However, how long will it be until the visitors realize that your content is no longer useful to them? Once they realized, they will leave your site and will no longer pay attention to whatever you posted. With this, you will probably lose your visitors forever. Imagine the horror!

So make sure to write a good headline that is straight to the point and relevant to your visitors. Don’t make them click your headline and then end up in disappointment. Always remember to keep your visitors happy.

What are your thoughts about clickbait headlines? Have you ever used a clickbait title before, and what were the results?

Source

Every blogger, newspaper editor or publisher wants to attract visitors to their website, but at what cost? Whilst most publications tend to only provide relevant content through their sites, others have turned to an unsavoury tactic known as ‘click baiting’ in order to draw in more readers.

Clickbait refers to the practice of presenting catchy headlines to readers which don’t actually represent the content which they are linked to. Clickbait headlines encourage people to click by promising a big payoff, but don’t actually deliver on expectations.

Why Use Click Bait?

The main reason that newspaper websites use clickbait tactics is to draw in unsuspecting web users for the purpose of advertising. They think that once a user is on their site after clicking on the bait, it’s an opportunity to bombard them with ads in the hope that those will also be clicked on. Clickbait is also often used in order to increase traffic numbers to a certain level, making it seem like the site has more organic visits than it actually does. In addition, the hope is that users will continue to read other stories and click on further ads once they are on the site. Many newspaper sites provide additional clickbait on a clickbait story in the hope that the user will cycle through.

How Does This Affect Online Users?

Whilst the use of clickbait may serve to bring in more visitors, the end result is that your website’s credibility is damaged. Once you have disappointed a user, it’s very likely that they will simply leave the site without clicking on anything else – and what’s worse, they’ll probably avoid your site altogether in the future. Pair this with negative word-of-mouth advertising, and you have a recipe for disaster. The bottom line is that fooling users does not amount to new subscribers – in fact, quite the opposite.

What’s Being Done About It?

In addition to the newspaper industry keeping itself in check, a number of social media sites have taken steps in order to reduce the amount of clickbait stories displayed. Perhaps the most notable measure taken is that Facebook has recently changed its algorithm to measure how long readers will stay on a link that they have clicked on. Links which do not receive long visits are then downgraded, and shown less than links which receive longer visits and are deemed to be more popular with users and therefore more credible. The new algorithm also additionally takes into consideration the amount of likes and shares that a particular link receives when determining its importance.

The Alternative

Although using clickbait may seem to be a quick solution for bringing in more traffic, the fact is that the alternatives have a far better lasting result. By providing readers with content that delivers and provides engagement and value, you are much more likely to gain new subscribers as well as protect the reputation of your newspaper or site. This approach may take longer to gain the desired result than using clickbait, however it pays off greater in the long run.
Leave your thoughts on clickbait in the comments!

Source: http://www.clickintelligence.co.uk/why-clickbait-journalism-may-not-be-the-answer/
Image courtesy of ogilvydo.com

Clickbait: The changing face of online journalism.

By Ben Frampton | BBC News

It is a golden rule of journalism, taught to any news reporter at the beginning of their career - your introduction should grab the reader straight away.
If you cannot hold someone's attention for a sentence, you have no hope of getting them to read the rest of your article.

The same is true for headlines; stark, witty or intriguing ones can draw the reader's eye to a story.
Headline writing has long been considered a skill but, in the digital age, a new word has become synonymous with online journalism - clickbait.

Put simply, it is a headline which tempts the reader to click on the link to the story. But the name is used pejoratively to describe headlines which are sensationalised, turn out to be adverts or are simply misleading.
Publishers increasingly use it for simple economics; the more clicks you get, the more people on your site, the more you can charge for advertising.

A report by the Columbia Journalism Review highlighted the case of online magazine Slant, which pays writers $100 per month, plus $5 for every 500 clicks on their stories.

Slant is far from unique in this respect and this business model is becoming increasingly common, but opponents argue it means journalists will dumb down stories in order to get more clicks in order to earn a living.

Last week, the NUJ expressed concerns after Trinity Mirror, one of the UK's biggest newspaper publishers, announced plans to introduce individual website "click targets" for journalists.

The group's editorial director, Neil Benson, said the aim was to focus on providing content that is "relevant to our audiences".

Damian Radcliffe, honorary research fellow at Cardiff University's School of Journalism said: "It's part of the world in which we now operate - there's a lot to be said for journalists to be able to write better or snappier headlines."

There are fears it could curtail a cornerstone of journalism - holding those in office and power to account - in favour of appealing to the lowest common denominator.

But Mr Radcliffe said this may not be the case.

"I think those stories will still be covered, but they may well cover them in new and different ways; not dumbing-down but being creative in how you tell these stories through infographics, explainers and video.
"I think it's a recognition the audience consumes content in different ways."

'Dangerous path'

Peter Preston, former editor of the Guardian and a columnist for the Observer, said: "You certainly want your journalists to be thinking how they get the maximum level of interest... it seems on one hand it's pretty stupid to not make sure your journalists are doing their best to serve their readers.

"It's a means of getting journalists to concentrate on [ensuring] whatever story they are doing is presented in the best way."

But Ken Smith, chairman of the Welsh executive council of the National Union of Journalists, has concerns.
"Without a doubt, there is a dumbing down in terms of content going on websites which does not bode well," he said.

"Inevitably, if the criterion for including the story on the website is determined by the number of clicks, then we're going down a very dangerous path.

"There's going to be an emphasis on the trivial, rather than stories which require more considered reading.

"If you're setting individual targets about how many clicks they should be getting, they will be more inclined to do this instant gratification journalism rather than look into issues of concern about how the local council is performing because they take time to research."

A by-product of this style of journalism - the frustration of readers clicking on a story which promised more than it delivered - has led to new ways to offer content.

Netherlands-based Blendle allows people to read stories from a host of newspapers and magazines, and offers a pay per story set up with a money back guarantee if readers feel short-changed or dissatisfied.

Sensationalising news is hardly new and, in the days of print journalism, there was no guarantee the stories scrutinising the elected and the powerful were being read any more than the titillating content.

"In days of yore, you had no idea if people were reading stories about parliament in the Sunday Times or from the local council or just skipping to the sport section, so I don't think it's a new question," said Mr Radcliffe.

"We've always had sensationalist content, I think it's easy to look back with rose-tinted spectacles. You can say we're living in the golden era of journalism in the access to the breadth and quality of journalism that we have now."

Mr Preston said the changing needs of online audiences means a healthy balance needs to be struck.
"There is a potential problem where a lot of less tractable material happening in your local parliament or more complex foreign affairs gets put to one side because reporters get concerned about pay and standards begin to fall," he said.

"These websites and newspapers are beginning to realise you need a bit of both to what you're putting out as opposed to just lists and fluff - there is a bit of a swing back."

Headlines are as old as journalism itself, so are those teasing lines on social media just a progression of an age-old skill?

"Headline writing is an art, to write something that draws somebody in. Clickbait seems to be a catch-all for that skill and has very negative connotations, but the reality is more nuanced and the ability to write something enticing on Twitter to pique someone's interest is a real art," said Mr Radcliffe.

"Some people see it [pay per click] as a slightly dirty business model. I don't share that view, it's just a digital reality. If that's how you get your foot in the door and develop a good story sense and how to write a good headline, I don't see anything wrong with that."

Negative consequences

But what works for one website will not necessarily work for another, so every organisation has to decide what balance works best.

"There's no doubt there's a swell of stories and the way they attract attention. There's a danger of shouting and tarting things up, almost across the board," said Mr Preston.

"[Clickbait stories] have somewhat diminished the value of news - they sell on stars in and out of bed... and that's one way of getting the clicks.

"People are beginning to say 'we need more stories, we need actual things happening' because that brings back readers and encourages engagement."

One perennial frustration for the online reader is the "look at me" headline, which can have negative consequences.

"If you look at news websites, increasingly stories are being headlined 'You will not believe what you're going to read'. It's all very well to do that occasionally when you've got something to interest the reader, but if you overplay your hand, people will find out what you're offering will not match your headline," said Mr Smith.

"This is a dangerous route to follow and sooner or later they're going to wake up to what you're offering them with these teasing headlines is not matched by the writing."

Where does this leave publicly-funded news outlets like the BBC, which does not have the same commercial pressures as the private sector and has a different editorial policy?

Mr Smith said: "It places a bigger burden on the BBC if you've got private sector giving up on public interest journalism."

He believes the BBC's plan to have a pool of reporters to share work with local newspapers "will take resources away from the BBC and will encourage the newspaper groups that have been making cuts to cut further, because they may well say if they can get the BBC to pay for the serious public interest material, we will get rid of existing employees and rely on what the BBC does".

Mr Radcliffe added: "Is the BBC still about universality or about market failure in covering and reporting on stories that are not being covered elsewhere? It's a big question and one that will continue to be discussed until the next charter renewal."

It is not just the content that journalists need to think about, but the medium.

Social media now works as a separate entity for news outlets - rather than a simple headline, picture and link to a story, organisations have to repackage and change how they offer news depending on the platform.
"What works on Twitter might not work on Facebook - you can potentially tell a story in 140 characters with a supporting image," said Mr Radcliffe.

Also, more thought is needed about which stories are posted on social media as that is not going to be the same audience as a newspaper's website.

"There's no doubt digital can do many sorts of stories absolutely brilliantly," said Mr Preston.

But Mr Smith feels style is being prioritised over substance: "The danger is we've become obsessed with the medium and forgotten about the content; good journalism is good in whatever medium it is available.

"You can come up with the most technically refined way of delivering material, but if that material is of no value there's no point to it."

'Massively daunting'

Clickbait in the many forms it takes - from the intriguing to the misleading - seems to be here to stay, so journalists and news organisations have a decision to make on what they want to offer people and where their priorities lie.

"It's a question of balance and if things are going the way they have been, newspapers will cease to have the character that they have had for centuries and they will simply become a vehicle of the light entertainment industry, which is quite tawdry, said Mr Smith.

But Mr Radcliffe sees causes for optimism: "I think it is just a different way of working, a reflection of the fact audiences consume content in different ways.

"The future is incredibly exciting and massively daunting, there are opportunities to do things in new and interesting and exciting ways."

But Mr Preston has words of caution for newspaper groups hunting for clicks.

"Trinity Mirror has reasonable reasons for doing this [pay per click]. Regional and local papers are fighting to make an impact online, having started down that road a little bit too late.
"
But if you open a Trinity Mirror paper in two or three years time after this has started and can't find anything but fluff and sensationalism then that's newspapers - online or offline - beginning to cut their own throats." (Sumber).*