If you think news media quality has slid in recent times, you are not wrong and you are not alone. Intense competition in the media space has led to a worsening of abuses that have long existed. Yet, there's a way to avoid being led up the garden path.

Nowadays we recognise the emergence of click-bait as a means of getting us to follow links to stories of questionable worth. However, this is nothing new. Even before the internet existed, headlines and lead paragraphs were designed to provoke us emotionally, tempting us to believe that something definitely is the case when really it isn't. Not to the degree implied, anyway.

In the current era it's obvious that a large percent of people who post comments on news and social media don't read a complete story, if any of it, before posting a response. They get sucked in by the emotionality of the headline and lead statement, forming an impression from surface judgement. That's the media's exact intention. It was the same in the days of hard copy newspapers, just without interactivity.

By following a link we are exposed to advertising as the story expands. That is the whole purpose of the exercise. Advertising funds most media content and provides profit. Editors anticipate that plenty of people will read at least some of the story, but not all of it. That's where the danger lies.

If you read a news article from the top down, you stand to be be made a fool of. To avoid that you would need to do something few people are inclined to do - read the whole story.

There's a better way. You should always read a news article from the bottom upwards. First read the bottom third, then the middle third, then the first third. Why? Because information that exposes the headline and lead statement as anything from a beat-up to an outright con is chronically buried deep in the story where few people will read to.

The first third usually builds upon the impressions created by the headline and soundbite. Plenty of people will read at least that far. The middle third mostly contains associated waffle that expands upon the issue without adding much extra. Fewer people will read to that point. The last third usually contains contrary information and hard truths that expose the lie of it all. Only determined information hounds will read that far. Those who do frequently find that their initial impression from the headline was wrong.

In the days of hard copy newspapers it was usual to find a story that took up a sizeable block of a page, but was then continued on for example, page 4. Sometimes you might find that it broke off again and was continued even further back in the paper. I learned in those days that if I immediately went to the last paragraphs, it was often pointless reading the initial story section because the headline was deliberately misleading.

I won't give hard examples because media corporations can afford much better lawyers than I can. However, I encourage you to follow this principle and you will see for yourself. You will then stand far less chance of being sucked in by editors desperate for stories with which to win advertising revenue even when their content amounts to whopping fibs.

Photo by Nijwam Swargiary on Unsplash