I read Breitbart News every day, sometimes more than once, to get an idea of what’s going on out there. So it pains me when these guys piss in the soup by, in this case, treating a fucking commercial as a news item, viz. (don’t bother clicking on it, it’s just a screen grab):
Most of the comments are scornful of BN, saying things like “As sponsored by…” and so on.
Here’s the news: nobody cares if you carry ads, or even advertorials. But you have to tell people that they are just that and not actual news reports, like this example from, of all places, the Daily Mirror:
Otherwise you could (justifiably) be accused of abusing the trust of your customers, which in this case, you are.
Even the “mainstream” news has followed this principle, although they too have succumbed to clickbait bullshit recently.
I thought Breitbart News was different. Clearly, I was mistaken. They just did a Bud Light.
Dumb shits.
It’s as though my Readers were to discover that all these years I’ve been paid by Springfield Armory to say all those horrible things about Glock. (Relax, I haven’t.)
And I’m just a little blog, tucked away in the corner of the Internet. If you’re in the Big Media Playground — and especially in the roped-off conservative area — trust is your only coin: fuck that up, and you’re dead. Ask Dan Rather.
No, I’m not going to stop reading Breitbart News, but I’m going to be a lot more skeptical about their reporting in future.
See how that works?
The day Andrew Breitbart died, his creations started to morph and decay, enmoled and eaten by the fakers and takers.
Everything’s falling apart.
Like yourself and many others, have learned to quickly and accurately skip over all the clickbait links in Breitbart and worse in other “conservative” blog news aggregators. In some it is getting out of hand, 70% bait, 30% actual news.
What really cheeses me off is when they also hide useless articles (meaning no actual details) behind a worthy news headline, those are getting harder to dodge.
I have a niggling suspicion that the liberal media is flooding the conservative media side with this crap on purpose, but I suppose that so long as Breitbart and others earn money off the liberal groups, all is fair in war and hate.
“It’s as though my Readers were to discover that all these years I’ve been paid by Springfield Armory to say all those horrible things about Glock. ”
Depends. How much do they pay and how do I get in on that action? Might be worth starting a blog just for that!
LOL Don. I have often asked myself the same question, as an intellectual exercise.
I’d have to change the site name from Splendid Isolation to Paid Shill, but other than that…
Pretty much the entirety of the online media have become clickbait sluts. Whenever you see SHOCKING, HORRIBLE, TERRIBLE, WIERD (especially in all caps) it’s guaranteed to be bullshit. I finally figured that out last year. I still follow the NFL – Seahawks are my team – & I got suckered: “NFL World Reacts To Horrible Russell Wilson News.” I’m thinking did he get hurt? Did something happen to his family? Nope. It was exponentially worse: he was having a bad year for the Broncos. So horrible. Horribly horrible. Don’t know if I can go on.
Don’t forget “INSANE” which along with “So, yes…” as an introduction has become the word du jour of the millennial/genXYZ emptyheads.
Videos and articles with that word in the title, especially in all caps, are guaranteed to be massively hyped time wasters full of nothing but mediocrity with bad audio and video editing. Like most reality shows, they’ll drag out something that shouldn’t need but a minute or so to cover into a fifteen minute drone worse than 1960’s 8mm home movies.
Please forgive me if I’ve posted this before but –
Anyone here remember what was touted to be the greatest benefit in history
from that new invention – television ?? Was heard, and touted, sometime in the 40’s.
We were ALL going to benefit from classes and lectures and could learn about
any and everything imaginable.
What do we have today ?
Approximately 30% to 35% of television is advertising !!!!! Time it sometime.
In the 50’s and 60’s the percentage was about 15% so it has essentially more than
doubled !
Today almost ANYTHING you watch on broadcast or streaming uses 1/3 of your
time trying to sell you something or convince you to do or say or join SOMETHING
that, when the dust and fluff and shiny colors settle it is going to cost you money !!
The internet as a whole is going right down the same damn path. It is becoming
more and more loaded with junk and trash and you have to wade hip deep
through crap just to try to find something that you may actually trust and believe.
Sometime ago I ‘googled’ ‘great balls of petrified shit’, one of my uncle’s exclamations ! Care to guess what popped up FIRST ?? That’s right boys and girls, Amazon, followed by a lot of other websites !!
Over time the internet will become what television already is, useless, because you will no longer be able to believe or trust ANYTHING you find, see, or hear !