The competition for clicks reached its peak for Lagos based News media house PM News, as it, and multiple blogs like DailyPost, published, on Thursday, a news report with a headline structured to create the wrong impression that a National leader of the APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is dead.
Announcing the death of a former Lagos State Head of Service, Alhaji Rafiu Tinubu, who passed on at the age of 75, PM News titled the story “Tinubu is dead, Sanwo-Olu mourns”.
For context, Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, who is the Governor of Lagos State, Nigeria’s former capital, is a known protege of Mr. Bola Tinubu, often simply referred to as Tinubu.
DailyPost was not left out as it ran the same headline, then doubled down with another deceptive headline in which “APC National Leader reacts to Tinubu’s death”. But a look into the story shows that the “APC National Leader” is Bola Tinubu himself. The usual “Tinubu reacts to the death of former Lagos HOS” was notably absent.
It is known practice among journalists in Nigeria to use a famous name in the creation of sensational headlines. In a very telling incident in 2017, a certain 9 months old child became famous because he bears the same name with the Nigerian President and he was to undergo penis surgery.
Media houses took odd interest in the story. While Vanguard Newspaper ran with the headline “Baby Buhari undergoes corrective surgery”, DailyPost went with “Buhari undergoes corrective penis surgery” while The Punch Newspaper went with “Young Buhari to get penis transplant”. There was virtually no report of the story that did not include the name “Buhari”.
Of interest to ETN24 is the span of the report. From February till March and after, notable media houses kept reposting the report of a Buhari who was scheduled for penis surgery at a time the President was known to be having an undisclosed ailment. The said report which appeared as early as February 17th on Vanguard Nigeria was reposted by Punch Newspaper as late as March 7; a three weeks difference. Even more interestingly, the report that came in March says speaks of a future surgery, that of February speaks of a surgery that us done already; both referring to exactly the same story, exactly the same surgery.
Attention, then by all means
Clickbait did not start as sensational. As early as 1927 there were headlines like “They laughed when I sat down at the Paino, but when I started playing….!”. Such titles, which told would-be readers there is more inside the story, were, however, themselves true, in shape and form, and nothing was twisted for double meanings. They are more appropriately called cliffhangers.
In modern-day journalism, BuzzFeed has gained so much notoriety in clickbait, Facebook considered banning its titles.
According to Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), Online Magazine “Slant” pays its writers an additional 5 dollars (1,800 Naira) per 500 clicks. Former Huffington Post writer, Ernest Owens, says about this,
“Any time you’re giving people an incentive for telling a story, then you’re automatically compromising the motive, the drive, and the intention behind telling it.”
