#BSLbytes #27: Click Bait

Posted by Chantelle Mackney on

If there isn’t an epidemic of “pit bull” attacks why do we hear about them so often? Why does one fatal dog attack grab headlines and spark breed ban discussions while two dozen others barely register in the public consciousness?

“News”, by definition, is what happens out of the ordinary. We don’t hear about the millions of cars that are driven safely to their destinations each morning. We don’t even hear about the ones that crashed, or the crashes that caused serious injuries. We hear about pileups or extreme cases of road rage, because those are dramatic and unusual.

Today, with online media, short reporting deadlines, and overworked reporters, its more common than ever to see news outlets relying on sensationalized headlines to drive readership. It’s called clickbait and it’s not so much journalism as news stories meant to grab attention and provoke a reaction. This blog post from 2015 is a great summary of clickbait. (Oh, and watch out for the kittens!)

http://blog.hugabull.com/clickbait

#endBSL #notoBill128 #Canada150 #BSLbytes
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Source and further reading:

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For background on the #BSLbytes campaign visit the HugABull blog:

http://blog.hugabull.com/take-a-byte-out-of-bsl
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27/150

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