Journalism manipulated by clickbait: Is the Press Advertising Agency encouraging it?

Many news sites resort to "clickbait" methods to increase their click-through rates. This practice, which attempts to attract readers with exaggerated and misleading headlines, is criticized by communication experts and journalists. The requirement for click-through rates set by the Press Advertising Agency (BİK) is cited as the culprit behind this situation.

Clickbait generally describes news created with misleading or exaggerated headlines, often for the purpose of generating more views. In such content, the reader's interest is piqued with attention-grabbing, emotional, or shocking headlines, prompting them to click on the news.

WHAT ARE BİK'S CRITERIA?

According to the report in 9.Köy, the Press Advertising Agency (BİK) made adjustments to the Official Announcement and Advertising Regulation dated February 1, 2023. The regulation,

requires news sites to reach a certain click-through, or readership, rate in order for BİK to provide them with advertisements and announcements. Classifying internet sites into 6 different categories, BİK mandates that a news site in the general category must employ at least 32 journalists, publish 240 news items daily, and reach 250 thousand unique visitors and 750 thousand page views to receive official announcements. A news site in the lowest category is required to employ at least 4 journalists, produce 40 minimum news items daily, and receive 1,500 unique visitors and at least 4,500 page views.

Ankara University Faculty of Communication, Department of Journalism Lecturer Dr. Gökhan Bulut is of the opinion that, with the exception of a very small number of sites, it is almost impossible for news portals to reach the click counts and time-on-page durations set by the Press Advertising Agency. Pointing out that news reading habits are declining today, Bulut stated that for most news sites, BİK targets have turned into a "fantasy," and expressed the view that, "In this case, moving away from journalism is practically being encouraged by BİK."

Bulut explained the method news sites resort to in order to meet BİK's statistics as follows:

"Internet sites turn to increasing Google-sourced traffic through search engine optimization (SEO) to meet BİK's statistics. As a result, either journalists are asked to know and apply SEO techniques, or SEO experts replace journalists. In both cases, content takes precedence over news. Content thought to attract interest and texts adapted to algorithm calculations come to the fore, and these digital methods cease to be tools and become the goal."

Stating that a large number of news items and content must be entered throughout the day to meet the criteria and increase visitor traffic, Bulut emphasized that this need extends working hours and brings a more intense workload for journalists. Noting that this situation leads to finishing the day at the desk, almost without breaks and using the "copy-paste" method, Bulut said, "The time and control processes necessary for quality and compliance with ethical values are neglected. Furthermore, journalists who are already working for very low wages face psychological and physical pressures and illnesses."

WHAT IS THE POSITIVE SIDE OF THE REGULATION?

Bulut said that the only positive aspect of the regulation is "the prevention of unregistered employment and paying employees less than the minimum wage."

"IT IS NOT RIGHT FOR GOOGLE TO ACT AS A MONOPOLY"

Gazete Duvar Editor-in-Chief Barış Avşar said that they track measurements through Google Analytics figures. Stating that alternative media cannot create its own rating system, Avşar emphasized that the reason for this is high costs. Expressing that the figures do not lead to very large changes when compared with BİK, Avşar stated that large differences can be observed in other institutions. Drawing attention to Google algorithm changes regarding news sites, Avşar conveyed that despite Google saying "We will end SEO content," the result is not so. Avşar said, "In every country, the 3-5 places we call central media remained at the top, while the remaining internet sites experienced a decline. It is the same in Turkey. It is not healthy for Google to act as a monopoly in this sense. Google does not follow a transparent and open policy on this issue."

12punto.com.tr news site Editor-in-Chief Mustafa Büyüksipahi said that clickbait has been one of the biggest problems of Turkish internet journalism for a long time. Stating that there are even situations where no result can be reached in the content, Büyüksipahi conveyed that the root of the problem is moving away from ethical values and the struggle for existence. Büyüksipahi stated that the publishing approach towards clickbait existed even before the BİK regulation, but the regulation change normalized and increased this situation:

"Journalists who exhibit an ethical approach naturally focus primarily on the content of the news. However, the reader, who is tired of reading negative news and is faced with a bombardment of information news, sometimes turns to content that we can describe as meaningless or useless. Structures that think they have to meet traffic criteria also prepare plenty of galleries, repeated information is served, mysterious headlines are written; unfortunately, a large number of constantly changing parameters lead to the development of changing perceptions and reading strategies."

"VERY FEW PEOPLE ACT ON PRINCIPLE"

Stating that what is overlooked is quality publishing, Büyüksipahi said that very few people act on principle. Büyüksipahi said that journalism networks and systems, especially internet news platforms, should develop models that will get rid of the Google effect.

Lawyer Gökhan Tekşen said that BİK encourages internet journalism due to the costs of printed newspapers and to increase its share in the advertising pie. Tekşen stated that the legal distortion is that it is regulated by regulation and acted upon by the administration's discretion. Stating that the lawsuit filed by the Journalists' Association in April 2023 for the cancellation of the regulation is being heard in the 10th Chamber of the Council of State, Tekşen explained the grounds for the application as follows:

"Provisions regarding press legislation, freedom of expression and the press, and the protection of the financial structure of newspapers were made the subject of the lawsuit. One of the main issues in the lawsuit was that this data traffic would be based solely on BİK's data system, and an objection was made regarding the auditing part of this. After we filed the lawsuit, an arrangement was made in the data flow, but it was not in the direction of correction; it was even aimed at increasing sanctions with the change that came in 2024. One of the main problems here is that BİK does not make both technical and legal regulations inclusive without taking the opinions of stakeholders."

Tekşen underlined that it is not in accordance with the law for BİK to be both the implementer of the system, the auditor, and the holder of the penal sanction.