Look, I get it. You want clicks. You want people to read your article. It’s pretty much the goal. However, when somebody writes something just to mislead your clicks, that’s where I draw the damn line. It’s not good journalism, it’s not entertainment…it’s just pandering. It’s clickbait…the worse scum of posts. Case in point this article by AsiaOne.
Reading the title, what comes to mind?
A good guy gets bit by a snake he helped? Ironic right? Personally, I went in hoping for a comedic retelling of what happened that lead to that situation.
Once you read the post though, you realize that it wasn’t even the full story. Sure, the guy got bit but the message here is that the guy was sad the snake rescued died because of human cruelty, ignorance and indifference.
As an animal lover, I can relate all too well to the feeling.
It’s shameful though for the writer to decide to use the snake bite as a hook instead of trying to educate the masses about dangerous snakes. The point Daryle Chan was trying to make was completely lost and ignored by the headline.
How many people more could the message have reached if the headline reflected that?
I guess for most people ‘Man rescues snake in Singapore condo, only to get bitten by it’ is a more interesting title than ‘Animal lover laments needless loss of life due to animal cruelty’.
That doesn’t mean it’s focusing on the right point. Shame on you AsiaOne. You guys call yourselves ‘Asia’s leading news portal’ and you pump out pieces like this.
Do better.