The Clickbait Economy
We were supposed to have entered the information economy. Instead we sink in a swamp of noise, biased reporting and divisive rhetoric that makes smart decision-making harder than ever.
We’re supposed to be living in the information economy. Instead, information has become the Achille’s heel of our society. Digital technology has made access to news and data immensely easier. Unfortunately, it has also created two major problems:
It has unleashed an unstoppable avalanche of pseudo-information, misinformation and disinformation, making it harder than ever to separate the signal from the noise.
It has brought us the clickbait economy: the dominant business model is advertising-driven, with media companies striving to monopolize our attention through an incessant stream of sensationalist and divisive headlines.
The result is a dangerous cocktail of shortening attention spans and rising confidence in firmly held uninformed views. We hardly ever go beyond the headlines; and yet, because we have access to so much information and “expert” views, we are convinced that we understand the issues and have the answers.
This trend started with social media, but relentless competition has pushed traditional media companies to the same model. Faced with declining subscriptions and audiences, newspapers and TV stations compete with a stream of sensationalist headlines.
The result is a dangerous cocktail of shortening attention spans and rising confidence in firmly held uninformed views.
Always an existential threat
This would be bad enough in itself, because it deprives us of a filter and quality-control that would be a lot more valuable today than twenty years ago. But it gets worse. This sensationalist drift includes the pervasive overuse of the “existential threat” idea. Trump is an existential threat to democracy. Fossil fuels are an existential threat to the planet. Immigration is an existential threat to our way of life. And so on and so forth. An existential threat justifies anything and everything — campaigning for the “right” response becomes infinitely more important than providing reliable information and honest analysis. And every topic is seen through the lens of some existential threat.
The result is that most sources of information become both sensationalist and biased.
I have highlighted in a recent blog a classic example: a New Yorker headline stating “California is showing a big state can power itself without fossil fuels.” The reality is that the golden state still relies on fossil fuels for nearly half of its electricity generation — a share that has not changed in seven years. But the fact that on very sunny and windy days, for a few hours, California can meet its power needs with renewables, gave the opportunity to push a false claim in the name of the righteous fight against… an existential threat. Smart people reposted the article without apparently even reading the subtitle.
When sensationalism and bias clash
In the example above, sensationalism and bias went hand in hand. But they became conflicting priorities with the assassination attempt against former president Trump. You can hardly imagine a more sensational event. We should have expected every single media outlet to instantly deploy the most dramatic headlines. Instead…
“Secret Services rushes Trump off stage after he falls at rally” — CNN
“Trump rushed off stage by Secret Service after loud cracking noises” — NBC
“Trump falls after loud noises heard” — Washington Post
“Trump removed from stage by Secret Service after loud noises startles [sic] former president, crowd” — USA Today
“Trump hustled off stage after loud bangs ring out at rally” — The Hill
“Trump injured in incident at rally” — CNN
“MAGA responds with outrage after Trump injured at rally” — Newsweek
“Trump safe after gunfire at rally” — New York Times, hours after the event
“Trump Hurt, But Safe, After a Shooting.” — New York Times, the day after the event
“Gunman Dies in Attack” — Denver Post
This almost reads like parody. I understand the desire to not make unverified claims, though it rarely seems to hold editors back, but “apparent/possible assassination attempt” would have taken care of that — and would have been a better match for the images streaming on social media. But since it has labeled Trump as an existential threat, the media’s overarching priority was to avoid anything that might sound sympathetic or play in his favor. Even a day later, the NYT could not bring itself to say “assassination attempt.” For the same reason, most media outlets avoided showing the iconic photograph of Trump shaking his fist with the American flag in the background. Some media outlets cropped the flag out; others scrambled for less flattering images of Trump being led away by Secret Service.
If you think this media reaction was normal, try for a moment to imagine if the target had been President Biden or Vice-President Harris.1
I’ve already lamented that “wherever you turn, people and machines now are just making stuff up.” But it’s worse. The media outlets that should help us get things straight are trying to deceive us for their own agendas. This is a major problem. Without reliable information, we can’t take rational decisions on major economic issues, from energy policy to trade tariffs to taxes, to social safety nets.
Democracy cannot function in a clickbait economy. Political leaders now strive to produce the most sensationalist and divisive rhetoric in a stream of inflammatory soundbites. Just listen to Trump and Biden. Widespread censorship and media bias are the true existential threat to democracy and prosperity.
We need a culture shift
How can we get out of this? At the outset I pointed the finger at the economics; but the solution has to come from culture. Without a cultural shift, the economic incentives will not realign. We need to rekindle a thirst for unbiased information, a desire to understand the issues, to listen to different points of view in an open-minded way. I have often stressed the importance of improving our education system, and I believe that’s where we should start, teaching kids the value of critical thinking, disagreement and rational debate — instead of censorship, phantom “triggers” and safe spaces.
Then, I think the solution can emerge in the free marketplace of ideas. We’ve already seen new, more reliable sources of information and discussion including here on Substack —
being one example. Maybe traditional media will then reposition as a provider of reliable information and analysis. I doubt it, though. I think most media companies are too far gone, and the loss of credibility and reputation they have inflicted on themselves will prove unrecoverable. I also do not see technology providing a solution in any reasonable timeframe — AI is a powerful tool, but the puppeteer always lurks behind the curtain.We need a cultural shift, and it can start with every one of us making the effort to read beyond the headlines, to listen to points of view we don’t like, to engage people we disagree with in an open-minded way. We might find it uncomfortable — but it’s a stimulating and often entertaining opportunity to learn. It’s also the only way forward.