The press was chasing clicks way before there were clicks

From Murder in the First-Class Carriage: The First Victorian Railway Killing by Kate Colquhoun. Page 107.

The assassin – for it would be an affectation to scruple about disregarding in this instance the sound conventional rule that untried men are presumably innocent – has succeeded in temporarily escaping, reported the Liverpool Mercury. He doubtless hugs himself in the fond belief that the broad Atlantic will soon roll between him and the baffled avengers of blood … As this man’s guilt is deeper and darker than the guilt of common murderers so it seems right and fitting that his punishment should include elements of mortal anguish beyond any penalties which the law can inflict … the concentrated agony … of the dock, the condemned cell and the scaffold. The Liverpool Mercury was not alone in deciding that the German was guilty. Although the rule of innocent until proven guilty was enshrined in English law the Victorian press paid little heed to prohibitions against stirring up prejudice against suspects or prisoners awaiting trial. Yet the fact that every scrap and rumour – no matter how false or vitriolic – could be published in order to boost newspaper circulations did cause a frisson of unease in legal quarters.

The press was chasing clicks way before there were clicks.