The power of search engines and social media continues to derail journalism. As a writer, it’s quite a depressing thing to see. While I myself have been asked to write articles ‘for SEO’, I have in every single case ensured that what I’ve filed is interestingly written and based on facts, with the intention of pulling in the punters but also giving them something to take away with them. Most other writers I know work in a similar fashion.

Of late, though, things have taken a nasty turn, with so-called ‘provocative’ pieces of bile lurking as serious opinion pieces or fact-based reports. These started life in blogs, with individuals aiming to get traffic and notoriety by taking an absurdly contrary viewpoint, but such pieces have now worked their way up the chain. Now, we have the likes of The Telegraph spewing out 10 reasons not to buy Apple’s new iPhone 4G.

Written by the publication’s Consumer Technology Editor, Matt Warman, it is a ten-part slice of bile, disinformation and bullshit, peppered with the odd fact and near-miss, about an unannounced product. It is, clearly, designed to get people angry and to get The Telegraph website more traffic, which presumably helps with advertising. What it’s clearly not designed for is serious debate, nor to enable people to decide whether or not the iPhone 4G (or whatever it ends up being called this evening) is for them.

Warman on Twitter clearly thinks he’s in the right. He dismisses criticism by saying he’s “upset the apple fanboys” (a very professional stance for someone who is, remember, a major publication’s Consumer Technology Editor) and claims he’s “eager to hear about the ‘glaring inaccuracies’” (note the scare quotes), despite the article’s comments thread being full of detailed criticism.

I find the whole thing terribly depressing and distasteful. The article is not absurd enough to be fun, not clever enough to be interesting, and it’s certainly not accurate nor informative enough to be journalism.