Conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt caught BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith off guard Wednesday with a specific question about a headline and so-called “clickbait” journalism.
“The lead story at BuzzFeed on the last day of the year – ‘Dead Cops Chant A Myth.’ That’s the headline. When you click on that, in fact, the headline is misleading, because your reporter says it’s not a myth, it’s just overstated,” Hewitt, adding later that the author of the report “actually comes up with a half dozen instances of occasions where people have called for violence against police.”
It’s important to note that the story itself never referred to the “dead cops” chant as a “myth,” Smith told the Washington Examiner.
Rather, he said, only the front page headline of BuzzFeed’s website used the word “myth.” The report, which was written by BuzzFeed News Reporter Tasneem Nashrulla, never uses the word “myth” in any headline or sub-headline.
But unfortunately for Smith, he hadn’t read the report prior to the interview. And he admitted as much to the show’s host.
“Well, wait a second,” he said. “Actually, I haven’t read the story. So I don’t feel I want to debate it with you.”
Laughing, Hewitt continued ahead to his main question: “[D]o you feel regret that they used that? Or is that just fair game, tabloid journalism comes to the Internet? You’re just trying to get people to click on that to read it.”
Smith, who has written at length on the topic of “clickbait” journalism, responded, defending BuzzFeed’s reputation: “I mean, I think that obviously, reporting should be accurate. Headlines should be accurate. … I think that’s a fairly obvious point that we both agree on.”
“I think that what [BuzzFeed] has been doing is really aggressive journalism that’s native to the, really deeply native to the web in its speed and depth, and in not doing the kind of stuff about mid-level, mediocre newspaper journalism that’s been most of what newspapers and wires have done for years and years, although they’ve also done really spectacular stuff,” he said.
Following the conclusion of the interview between Smith and Hewitt, the BuzzFeed article was updated to include a note about the site’s use of the word “myth.”
