<b>So-called respectable online news organisations were today publishing any old rubbish in the hope of enticing readers to click on profitable Black Friday adverts.</b>

The shameless websites were running stories with apparently no thought at all in an attempt to attract traffic that would be easily influenced to click on a bargain.

One news website even wrote a story about other news websites publishing any old rubbish.

A media source said: "With competition for eyeballs so high, and with readers' attention diverted to picking up a Black Friday bargains, publishers are resorting to publishing the first thing that comes into their heads.

"Readers open up the story and realise they have been duped - but before they close their browser, they see a Black Friday advert and they just can't help themselves. They click it and the publisher gets paid a princely sum."

But a spokesman for the British News Website Standards Authority, of which the Suffolk Gazette is a founding (and only) member, said: "The notion that sites are running any old rubbish today in order to attract lucrative eyeballs on Black Friday is nonsense.

"The Suffolk Gazette does this every day."

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