What happens when you feel like you can’t trust national news outlets? Some will just fill in the blanks with their own perceptions — it’s what often spurs conspiracy theories. It may also inspire those with opposing opinions to slide the scale even further to the left or right to fit their viewpoints.
How can you trust news from a source that tries to trick you?
Yesterday, a sniper took aim at firefighters in Idaho. I checked the Associated Press for details. What do I find? Right in the middle of the story is a click-bait advertisement.
At first glance, it looks like a burned body on a stretcher, doesn’t it? Remember, this article is about what happened to firefighters responding to a fire — and two are dead. Even if AP wasn’t trying to trick their readers into clicking on the ad for increased revenue, I would still think it’s inappropriate.
Here’s an example of an ad that’s running on Reuters…
Having lived in Indiana my entire life, I’ve never seen any landscape that looks like that. Evidently, Reuters doesn’t care how fake something is so long as they make ad revenue either. This one is just insulting. A Google image search let me know it’s the Guozigou Bridge in China… from Indiana to this bridge it’s a 16 hour direct flight covering around 6,800 miles.
At least CNN doesn’t offer the ads until near the end of the page — and you’ll note there’s not invasive ads on their breaking news page regarding the Idaho shootings. Fox News, on the other hand, hits the very top of their main page with a rotating banner ad. Even more annoying, if you click a page link, a video will open up and start playing — sound and all. ARG!
It’s hard to trust any organization or company that tries to trick you for money.
Licensing content to various media outlets is a more significant source of income for the national news outlets, but still, they saturate everything with click-bait fake ads that undermine their credibility.
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Now you know: A man used a whistle found in a Cap’n Crunch cereal box to hack AT&T in 1971.