• The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic. – H.L Mencken

"Most Read" trends a disturbing reflection of society

Posted by Robert P. Landis on 3rd December 2011 12:10am

One of the things I sometimes keep an eye on are the "Most Read" article lists on news websites. I think they reflect somewhat, the level of sophistication in society. Although, disturbingly, these trends are formed by the component of society that actually get online and read the news, which I would imagine is the component at the upper end on the intelligence curve.

Nevertheless, the trend you will notice is amazingly persistent and is represented nicely by this screenshot I took, five minutes ago, of the "most read" articles on the Herald Sun website ...

I suppose the logic is that, since the most trafficked material on the web is pornography, if we can only make the news look as much like pornography as possible, we will increase our traffic and our ad revenues.