Tabloid websites are unreadable even if I wanted to!

[Anxiouslump]

Is it just me?
I tend to avoid red-tops anyway, but on the rare occasion I do click on something by the mirror, express or the sun, the page takes far too long to load due to all the ads, and trying to scroll down is a lost cause for the same reason. Why do they even bother!

Agree! It's pointless

Do they actually think those Ads make us buy what they are advertising? I never do.

Not just tabloids - most news websites. Why so much clickbait?

There's clickbait and clickbait. All headlines are clickbait to some extent but some are just utter rubbish. As an example all the silly headlines about the UK freezing under 10 inches of snow, or this weekend sweltering in - er - 17 degrees.

Am also confused about how it is possible to read any of those websites. SO many flickering, moving pop ups that there none of the screen left. I genuinely have to leave the site within a few seconds of attempting to use them.

I won’t click on articles for this reason. Horrendous user experience, who it is they think enjoys such difficulty navigating their content I’ll never know.

Completely agree. It’s a really interesting thing on how journalism has evolved though.

25 years ago, it was all about summing up the story in as few words as possible in the first paragraph. Effectively the original TLDR - but written to tempt you in further.

Now it’s about leaving out really key details until many paragraphs down (to tempt you in further) when you’ve run the gauntlet of strobing ads and navigated confusing check boxes to read more that mean you accidentally access ad sites rather than more story detail.

Hopefully it will evolve again as many of us take the TLDR approach

What I want to know is why they have adverts with photos or pictures that are uncomfortable to look at or give you a little scare response.

Like this although this isn't really a good exam a lot of them are more gruesome.

But this is not the best beetroot photo available so why do they do it?

Curiosity clicks, same as weird temu ads etc it’s clickbait to draw you into the spammy website

But why do they use photos that put you on edge?

Because some people get interested to click as to why it’s weird/gross.

The model for The Mirror and its other group news titles (all Reach media so the Evening Chronicle, Liverpool Echo and Manchester Evening News) makes very little money from online. Most of the profit still comes from print but they can't work out how to monetise the online versions. So they pack the pages with adverts some for click thru and others paid for promotion. It's not working however as Reach cut the number of journalists twice in 2023 total losses were about 700. My partner was one of them

The lack of journalists is why you essentially get very little news but do get an update on Stacey Solomon or whoever "hitting back at trolls". Because it's cheap, one journo can write it then all the titles can run it. And they are starting to use AI to do it now.
There's no budget to go out and do longer investigations or follow up stories for the most part. So they recycle each others content. You'll find the Mirror reporting on what he Sun has previously covered, even if it was a 4 year old story. They have become "ghost titles" in regional news, very little local news in them.

The BBC funds the Local Democracy Reporters to ensure there is some coverage of local government decision making. But you'll have to scroll past 18 stories about Princess of Wales which are all SEO boosted to hell in a desperate attempt to drive webtraffic and get clicks. Even the Reach bosses agree there is too much advert clutter. But the fact is good journalism costs money. If nobody pays to read news anymore how can you pay good journalists

https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/regional-newspapers/uk-local-news-quality-reach-newsquest-manchester-mill/

Yes, I suppose. I do the opposite and scroll away quickly (not from the beetroot but from the more repulsive ones) but it must work or they wouldn't do it.

i go youtube news,

They are probably doing you a favour by being so shite.

Thanks for the insight, sorry about your partner’s job.

These ‘news’ articles aren’t even journalism any more, just ‘junk mail’ in website form.

I could be completely wrong, but I had the idea that browsers / websites / platforms (I have no idea which if I’m honest) show us gruesome photos to make us agree to data sharing and tracking for personalised ads?

I always refuse to agree to cookies / personalised ads etc, and I got gross photos of earwax and tonsil stones thrown in my face everywhere for months.

There is nothing more infuriating than trying to click on a video on The Mirror or the Daily Mail website. I wouldn’t even mind the ads if the video actually played out, but it mostly doesn’t, or skips to an unrelated video.

Here's an idea. Buy a real paper based newspaper. Keep proper journalism alive and don't expect everything to be free.

As is said, if you're not paying for it then you are the product.

Hey now @VeniVidiWeeWee, where did I say that I don’t buy paper newspapers and expect everything to be free?

I’ll have you know that I do subscribe to The Guardian (even though I don’t have to and could technically access it for free) and I get the i delivered every Weekend. Which papers do you have subscriptions for?

Just because I sometimes click on a news article online, there is no need to leap to the attack, I think we share plenty of common ground.

I have an ad-blocker so am saved from the worst of this. But the appalling spelling and grammar in tabloids puts me off massively. And the sexist language and celeb obsessions.

Install 'Brave.' brilliant and blocker and data saver. I couldn't use Mumsnet before I used brave because of all the ads.

thanks will give this a try. Although as PPs have said, I’m likely not missing out on a y quality content anyway!