Bad Press Awards

Mic Wright

Recognising the Worst of the Worst of British Journalism

The Silver Salver for Total Lack of Self-Awareness

‘Clickbait’ is an interesting word.

In its original form, it meant an article where the headline promised something the copy simply didn’t deliver.

Now, subject to the same kind of semantic drift that has afflicted words such as ‘woke’, clickbait simply means anything that is hyperbolic or exaggerated; a piece of content – another dread word – that appeals to the consumer’s baser instincts.

I’m picking at the etymology of ‘clickbait’ because the term appears early in a column by this month’s subject: Allister Heath of the Telegraph.