Phoenix Biz Journal editor not interested in click bait

Adam Kress, the digital editor of the Phoenix Business Journal, writes about why the American City Business Journals paper decided not to include a piece from Vice headlined “Reasons why Phoenix is the worst place ever” in its daily email.

Kress writes, “So I had a discussion yesterday afternoon with our Editor-in-Chief Ilana Lowery about whether we should include a short story and link to the ‘worst place ever’ piece in our Morning Edition. That daily Morning Edition is sent out to about 15,000 people via email, and is a combination of the news we produce and also links to other relevant and interesting stories that we think the Phoenix business community would be interested in.

“As the person who monitors our site traffic every day, my first instinct was to include the Vice story. How could you not click on that? If they’re going to get tons of traffic from this story, why shouldn’t we get our cut of it?

“But the reason we didn’t include it was simple: It’s not news. It’s entertainment, and that’s perfectly fine. It’s just not for us.

“However, that didn’t stop ABC 15 and KTAR 92.3 FM from quickly picking up the story and linking to it from their websites. If the comments on their stories and social media shares are any indication, I’m sure they’re getting a ton of traffic.

“But therein lies the primary criticism that mainstream journalists face. Is what we’re covering really news? When mainstream media outlets such as local TV and radio stations link to these sort of stories, they are legitimizing the content as news, as opposed to entertainment.”

Read more here.