Ad-Click Journalism Has Destroyed the Legacy Media

Thanks to narrative-driven news coverage and groupthink, over half the country now assumes media companies are lying at all times.

Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash.

The media landscape has changed almost completely over the last 10 years. Major landmarks have been razed to the ground; entire mountain ranges have grown up out of the ruins. It’s almost unrecognizable.

Once the gold standard, legacy media outlets like CNN and the New York Times have become distrusted by well over half the country. The model introduced to mass media by lamentable pioneer Rush Limbaugh- narrative-driven news entertainment with a political bias- has become the new gold standard of the mainstream news industry.

Now there are a hundred Rush Limbaughs using the same formula on every channel but C-SPAN: Present a narrative, provoke a strong response by pitting one side of the political spectrum against the other, elevate the most extreme viewpoints and preach to the choir until the checks start flowing.

And the checks are certainly flowing. Most of the time, in the legacy media where groupthink has taken hold, the checks are flowing with the ad-clicks. And the ad-clicks flow to clickbait headlines intentionally designed to provoke a strong and angry response. It’s the only way to distinguish yourself currently; who can out-outrage all the…