Mayoral votes Vying for attention in clickbait age
The Guardian|April 27, 2024
Keane Duncan's highest-profile success, before standing to be the first elected mayor of York and North Yorkshire, was as the journalist who broke the news that Morrisons would not sell meat pies to people in Middlesbrough before 9am.
Jim Waterson
Mayoral votes Vying for attention in clickbait age

"That went off the charts, with millions and millions of views," recalls the 29-year-old Tory candidate, who worked for a number of local news outlets in the north of England before quitting to focus on politics. "It turned into this crazy viral sensation. That is my journalism legacy, everything else I've done is irrelevant." 

Duncan was in the room as regional newspapers transformed from print chroniclers of local politics to click-hungry online publishers constantly trying to go viral on Facebook. Now a full-time politician - after a stint as a news editor on the Daily Star when it pitted the former prime minister Liz Truss against a lettuce - Duncan is applying the same approach to political campaigning. This includes announcing on Instagram his policy, unusual for a Tory, of nationalising Scarborough's dilapidated, symbolic Grand Hotel with a compulsory purchase order.

This story is from the April 27, 2024 edition of The Guardian.

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This story is from the April 27, 2024 edition of The Guardian.

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