The media plays a vital role in giving information to the general public. Most journalists write stories that are meant to capture a large audience. The first step to attracting viewership is the title of an article. A good headline often draws the attention of readers. Some of the common topics that attract mass audience include politics, business, health and fitness, and entertainment. With modern technology, people have several platforms to access news such as print media, social media, and online sites. Information, therefore, travels far and wide.
Journalists always seek to cover stories that relate to people and are likely to cause a sensation across borders. In online articles, a catchy title, click bait, with an interesting small introduction, is enough to sell a story. For example, the title “Former U.S First Lady, rips President Trump in a new memoir” with an introductory sentence such as “In her new book, she blasts the sitting president” is a good catch for most people. This is because the United States’ presidency has a large following and critics as well. Many people are also very interested in politics and are seeking the slightest information to help them drum support or criticize the political leaders and systems in place. Such posts are often accompanied with links that make it easy to access the story by just one click. They further, in the end, have suggestions of relating stories with capturing titles to keep you glued for a long time, flipping from one story to another.
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Over time, journalists have used click baits for stories that are not necessarily hitting the headlines. There is competition in the media business and any measure that ensure a story trends is very important. However, there are times when a catchy title with a link leads to an advertisement or redirects to a sign-up page that may not be necessarily appreciated by most audience. This is usually a marketing strategy for most of the media organizations.
In other instances, one story can be written by different journalists with different titles and one ends up reading the same article several times just because of the title. For example, “The U.S Democrats’ journey to victory” and “The beginning of Republicans’ woes” may be seen as two different stories but end up having the same content. With such articles, one would be wasting a lot of time reading content that does not add to their pool of knowledge but rather uses up time that would be dedicated to other things. The constant need to attract audience has brought about concerns of content and how well journalists understand some of the subjects they write about. Some articles are shallow and give unverified information making, readers read information that may not benefit them.
There are times when bad titling may lead to people ignoring a good story. Click baits can help in time of a crisis to appeal for help. For example, during a gun violence attack or other serious issues, a catchy title helps reach a big audience who could be willing to assist the situation. Bringing awareness to such a situation would bring awareness to the subject and have well-wishers and philanthropic groups come up to assist in saving lives.
Click baits can be used for any story that the journalists think is important. They should, however, strive to use correct information, that is verified and well researched, and that builds on the body of knowledge of the subject being discussed. They should also avoid duplication of a similar story just to attract subscribers or readers.
