Beware of clickbait dressed up as journalism



Clear winner of the prize for the most ignorant music journalism of 2018 is the Guardian article seen above. Disturbing is its assertion that "smaller shops will survive". This is just plain wrong. Many,many invaluable independent record stores have closed, and continue to close, and industry figures show that across the whole UK retail sector there was a net loss of 1554 independent retailers in the first half of 2018. Also disturbing is the repellent ageism of Penny Anderson's statement that 'HMV was where your grandparents imagined you still “bought records”'.

But even more disturbing is that headline which unashamedly uses social media's toxic trick of presenting clickbait as journalism. It would be a mistake to dismiss this desecration of the art of journalism as an aberration of the rock music industry. Alas, clickbait dressed up as journalism is now a feature of the classical media. It was pioneered, of course, by Norman Lebrecht. But it can also be found elsewhere among writers who should know better.

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