A regional daily’s unusual story about a “ghost ship infested with cannibal rats” went viral and broke all previous web traffic records for the title.
The Herald in Plymouth published a story on Thursday about an abandoned Yugoslavian liner and fears it could crash into the coast of Devon or Cornwall.
The story attracted 259,627 unique page views on Thursday and more than 100,000 on Friday.
And it led to the Herald’s website having its best ever day for unique users, across mobile and desktop devices, and its best day for Facebook, Twitter and bookmarked referrals.
Senior reporter Sam Blackledge said: “The story of the rat-infested ghost ship was a bit of fun for us, and we were amazed at how quickly it took off.
“There have been no reports of this vessel drifting into Plymouth Hoe yet – but if it does appear, it will make a decent follow-up.”
The Herald’s story reported that the abandoned Lyubov Orlova was cut adrift while being towed to Canada nearly a year ago and has been missing since then.
The liner has been driven across the Atlantic by high winds and is believed to be close to the UK shore, with fears being raised it could crash into the shore of Devon, Cornwall, Ireland or Scotland.
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Sadly wasn’t this the very same story which the experts later dismissed as sheer fantasy when the BBC covered the story? What happened to the normal journalistic role of simply telling the truth?
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Are they really boasting about a fabricated story just because it got a few online hits? A sad, sad day for a paper that is little more than bird-cage flooring and a website that hurts the most robust of brains.
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And it generated exactly how much revenue or put on how many extra sales of the print version?
They have to be the questions for potential advertisers – perhaps Rentokil in Plymouth, Falmouth, Ireland or Scotland, France, Spain, Portugal, Algeria, Nigeria (that’s enough potential rat plague places thanks…Ed)
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I thought the Ghost ship was the newspaper’s former HQ building.
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I hate myself for adding to the pervading negativity of the comments section, but I have to agree with the posts above. Is a story that was very quickly dismissed as an urban myth really something to be boasting about?
The story was read by 359k people, all of whom now know the Herald is happy – nay proud – to print nonsense.
You really have to question the logic of Local World titles chasing one-off traffic in this fashion. It would be interesting to look at the February figures for the Herald and see how much of that audience it clung onto. My guess is zero. Same for the Nottingham Post, which was boasting about 2m uniques last month after its (admittedly better) story about an X Box went viral. Go on hftp, get back to basics and diary it for a follow-up.
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Rather detecting some Luddite criticism here. A quirky story that has got the paper truly talked about is surely cause for praise. Remember, we’re in this business for the readers – simple as that! If you can raise a smile with them, you’re connecting with them.
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Well said ‘sub up north’
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I don’t think anyone is knocking it as a story (as tenuous as the link is with Devon or Cornwall, depending on which Herald news site you read.).
It is quirky, interesting and, though I am not a newspaper consultant, guaranteed to spark a lot of hits for any website it appears on.
But is this an exclusive story from the Herald newsdesk? If it is and it has been picked up worldwide then that is real cause for congratulations.
I am confused because the version I read quoted The Sun?
What some people might be concerned about is the temptation in the future for local papers to bump up their web traffic with sightings of Elvis, sightings of Elvis on toast, sightings of toast shaped like a ship full of cannibal Elvis rats…
My point is that unless you have a paywall (like the Sun) or the wacky and bizarre is your website USP, you cannot monetise this kind of story.
Looking at the Herald sites, thank heavens they do have proper news too.
And Luddites? Aren’t we talking here about….Wreckers!
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But the story wasn’t true. As a lifelong journalist it makes me ashamed to see colleagues boast about it.
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Sorry to throw in another moaning comment but this is nothing to be proud of. The local connection to the story is tenuous, there was no original research or journalism involved, readers discovered nothing they couldn’t read on hundreds of other websites and the story itself was very quickly proven to be nonsense. As an earlier poster said, it smacks of “chasing one-off traffic”. If this route were followed to its logical conclusion, local paper websites would be nothing but inane lists and vaguely amusing animal pictures.
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