Clickus baitus

Clickus baitus

Does it seem to you that financial and housing markets are always either 'booming' or 'crashing' these days?

Yep, same here.

Certainly if you read various online news outlets that's what you'd be led to believe.

Its not an accident, of course.

As we've moved into a 24-hour news cycle, this has effectively become part of the news content grid.

And since more news is now consumed online, it's practically nailed on that this will continue. 

Check out the below guidelines for reporters working on the Evening Standard's website in 2018:

Source: Guardian

It's interesting to note that so-termed 'property p_rn' stories must almost always feature house prices either 'soaring' or 'bombing', or rip-off rentals, which explains a bit. 

Slow & steady wins the race

The day-to-day (or intra-day) stock market noise already reached fever pitch years ago, yet accumulated returns have continued to break record highs by the year. 

Brisbane's housing market is another fine case in point, since over the past dozen years prices for suburban houses have often increased in value by 50 to 100 per cent for many owners.

But they have often done so in a fairly steady fashion, with price growth quietly compounding away.

That's not a news story that's you'd have read about online, though, because it's not going to get enough clicks.

The horror...

As explicitly stated in the guidelines above, if it doesn't fit into any of the news content categories, the the story won't be run. 

Simple as that. 

It's much more likely that you've read stories about horror road crashes, shocking crimes, and natural disasters...even if there were none near where you live (global horror stories that aren't location-dependent are another part of the online news grid strategy). 

And that's not an accident, as the noble profession of journalism is sadly diluted by online clickbait. 

Be careful about the amount of garbage you feed to your brain; you might start to believe it.