MINOT, N.D. — You've all heard the term "clickbait" before, uttered derisively, and not always deservedly, toward online content designed to prioritize earning a click or view or listen, over everything else, including the truth.
But how did things get this way? What's the history of clickbait?
Ben Smith, one of the founders of a new news venture called Semafor, joined this episode of Plain Talk to talk about it. He's a pioneer of early blogging, a veteran of Politico and The New York Times, and he was the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News, a position from which he made the decision to publish the now-infamous Steele Dossier.
Smith is also the author of a book called "Traffic: Genius, rivalry, and delusion in the billion-dollar race to go viral." It's a history book, spanning roughly the last two decades of internet journalism, from the Drudge Report to the Huffington Post, from Breitbart to Gawker, and how it was all shaped by a relentless drive for traffic. Attention. Clicks.
If you want to buy Ben's book, you can do so here.
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The Trust Project
