What is really wrong with the media, mainstream and otherwise

[Berkut]

It is all clickbait.


This is just an example, of course, but I thought it was just bizarre how over the top the headlines is:

Millions of Americans will be forced into an involuntary polar plunge this week


https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/20/weather/weather-central-us-cold-snap-snow-storm/index.html

[/size]What the hell? Talk about a ridiculous headline. The story is utterly routine - its winter, and there is a cold front coming.Millions of Americans? Well yeah. That is how weather works.

Will be forced? Huh? Is someone going to pull out a gun and goose march them into the weather?


Involuntary? WTF does that even mean when it comes to the freaking weather?


Polar plunge is fine - a bit hyperbolic, but hey, it is arctic, and the weather is going to drop fast, so...ok.


But more to the point, someone has it as their job to craft a headline like that. That's what they do - figure out how to make the headline as over the top as possible, to the point that the headline is really the story.


I bet that one actually worked as well. Someone probably got an "attaboy!" for that drivel.


This concludes your Berkut grumpy post of the day.

[Sheilbh]

Strikes me as too long - "force into" and "involuntary" are surely just the same, so at least one is redundant. Journalism should be in the active voice 99% of the time - but it's 100% for headlines.

Also not sure if "millions of Americans" helps it feels like it should either be Americans or you should identify where those millions are, or if you need "this week" either - it's about the weather and it's not in the past. We can work it out.

[grumbler]

It is quite true that stories have fact-checkers but headlines do not (and they are not written by the story authors, but by flunky editors).

I generally ignore headlines when evaluating stories.

[Josquius]

I've not seen this kind of headline for the weather. Bizzare.

But yes. It's all clickbait. It runs on outrage-which is why it tends towards the populist right.

[The Brain]

There are so many better headlines that could have been written.

"What does cold air do to the weather? The results will shock you!"

"People [your age group] in [your area] are raving about this amazing new weather"

"Caroline S has sent a sex invite to you. Click here to respond."

[Josephus]

Yup journalism has gone downhill.

[garbon]

A sensational weather forecast is what's wrong with journalism?

[HVC]

Yup journalism has gone downhill.

I too miss the glory days of yellow journalism.

[The Brain]

Is this the time to discuss weather journalism is in decline or not?

[garbon]

Is this the time to discuss weather journalism is in decline or not?

[The Brain]

Is that Yanet Garcia?

[Sheilbh]

I too miss the glory days of yellow journalism.

[Syt]

You know, my uncle was a political writer for one of those London tabloids. I can still remember his biggest scoop. The headline read: "High-ranking politician caught wearing women's clothing." Of course, you turn to page 2 and you found out it was Margaret Thatcher, but by then you'd already bought the paper.
- Daphne Moon



There may be more clickbaity headlines as a whole, but isn't this what papers (esp. tabloids) have been done for a long time?

[Sheilbh]

You know, my uncle was a political writer for one of those London tabloids. I can still remember his biggest scoop. The headline read: "High-ranking politician caught wearing women's clothing." Of course, you turn to page 2 and you found out it was Margaret Thatcher, but by then you'd already bought the paper.
- Daphne Moon



There may be more clickbaity headlines as a whole, but isn't this what papers (esp. tabloids) have been done for a long time?

Yeah- it's just the media's changed. So it used to be and still is - what's the most striking/drag you in headline (albeit that isn't wildly unrelated to the story).

Headlines that do well in search engines are different and the SEO ones tend to, in my view, be a bit crap because they're designed to grab the attention of Google etc not humans (but that drives lots of readers). Good journalists try to balance the data they have on what people will click with the desire that people read the story they've reported (normally because there's a story they think is worth telling and reading) but I think it's really tough.

Although clickbait to me is either the "one cool thng you've not heard of" or the various iterations on "x destroys/explains/lays out y" - it's something that tells you nothing about the story you're about to read. Then you click on the story and it's not really related - it's a switch and bait.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Yeah, I saw that article, didn't read it. Was trying to find out what a voluntary polar plunge was supposed to be.