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Journalists don scary clown masks in bid to publicise website

Two weekly newspaper journalists dressed up as clowns and took photographs with readers in a bid to promote their rebranded website.

Chris Knight and Phillip McEleney, of the MK News, were challenged to get ‘selfies’ with 50 readers wearing the Halloween attire, to publicise the paper’s OneMK site.

The website was rebranded as OneMK in July with more emphasis being put on user generated content, allowing organisations such as community groups to upload their own copy to its pages.

Chris and Phillip took the frightening mask to the intu shopping centre, in Milton Keynes, on Wednesday.

Chris, pictured left in the mask, with two intu shopping centre workers

Chris, pictured left in the mask, with two intu shopping centre workers

The duo managed to get around 30 pictures in the costumes, but have claimed victory because more than 50 people posed in the shots in total.

However, they also managed to scare a few away.

Said Chris: “It might have been my fault because I bought the scary clown mask so unfortunately we did scare a few parents and children, but there were a few kids happy to get into the picture.

“We got some very funny looks but it was generally quite a positive reaction.”

Phillip added: “Despite scaring a few young children, I think the ‘selfie’ challenge helped raise some awareness about our website and showed people we’re no longer just a news and sports website.”

9 comments

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  • October 30, 2015 at 8:53 am
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    Has it really come to this?
    donning “scary clown masks” to drum up interest in their rebranded web site?

    if the site needs to draw attention to itself i dont think scaring off potential site visitors by donning halloween masks and approaching them for a selfie is the answer
    “there were a few kids happy to get in the picture” unfortunately kids arent potential users of the site so that was a waste of time if raising awareness of the site and attracting site visitors was the objective.
    i smell desperation in the air

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  • October 30, 2015 at 11:08 am
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    What a pointless and embarrasing exercise. Did they pick up any actual news while they were fooling around? Maybe this sort of stunt should have been carried out by marketing people, whose job it is, and leave the reporters to do what they are good at.

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  • October 30, 2015 at 11:52 am
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    ’ …. helped raise some awareness about our website and showed people we’re no longer just a news and sports website.”

    Nope, I think you’ve killed those two aspects too by this pathetic stunt.

    This shows just how desperate things must be if they have to resort to this kind of ridiculous challenge in order to make people aware of this site.
    If they had focused on what’s new on the site and shown why people should visit it they might have helped the cause, instead they’ve shot themselves in the foot and have shown themselves up to be Offering nothing to the potential user via such a childish prank.
    Beggars belief that anyone thought this a good idea to help raise awareness at a time when the site is being relaunched and needs to attract viewers
    Pathetic

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  • October 30, 2015 at 12:39 pm
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    Words fail me
    And they wonder why there’s a crisis in local press and why no one takes regional press websites seriously

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  • October 30, 2015 at 1:08 pm
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    Whoever “challenged” them to get the 50 selfies (strangely we are not told who this was) should have to wear that mask all next week.

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  • October 30, 2015 at 3:57 pm
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    Lame beyond all telling but if ”journalists” willing to fall in line and take part what can you say?

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  • October 30, 2015 at 6:10 pm
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    I am old enough to remember when you could be a journalist but still cling on to a shred of self-respect.

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