Clickbait

I tend to use Flipboard, a news aggregator that compiles news stories under several subject headings. There are several news sources that are nothing more than clickbait, but many also appear on Facebook.

First came the “Live” sites. Birmingham Live, Bristol Live, Cornwall Live – all birthed by Reach plc to make local news look as if it was breaking, urgent, pulsing with immediacy. In reality, most of it was reheated press releases padded with filler and football gossip. They flooded Facebook feeds with “You won’t believe what happened next” headlines that led to three meagre paragraphs and a pop-up ad for car insurance. A simulacrum of journalism – quantity over quality, volume over value.

Then came the even cheaper knock-offs: the “City Mail” brigade. Manchester Mail, Liverpool Mail, Bristol Mail – clone after clone, stamped out on WordPress templates with all the authenticity of a fake Rolex from a beach hawker. No reporters, no offices, no accountability. Just AI slop and recycled copy designed to drag your eyeballs past enough adverts to pay for the server bill in some offshore sweatshop.

Both sets of sites trade on borrowed authority. “Live” pretends it’s urgent. “Mail” pretends it’s trustworthy. Neither delivers. They feed on the fading memory of when local papers actually sent a hack to sit through a council meeting or poke about in the magistrates’ court. These outfits wouldn’t recognise a FOI request if it came wrapped in a bow.

And the public? Too often taken in. A headline flashes by – “Local outrage as council plans new charges” – and before you know it, you’ve clicked, skimmed, and learnt precisely nothing, except that your device can handle yet another autoplay advert. That’s not news, it’s content – and the difference matters.

Next time you see “Live” or “Mail” dangling at the end of a site name, remember: what you’re about to read isn’t a newspaper. It’s camouflage. And the people peddling it aren’t journalists. They’re pickpockets – only instead of your wallet, they’re after your attention span.