As IF Times

link Newspaper bane: Nobody reads the stories.

One of the great consequences of the trend towards packaging news and entertainment into bite sized pieces for the modern A.D.D. culture is that much of the depth of information is lost.  Ironically, at a time in history when there has never been as much information, news and entertainment so readily available to so many, people are as uninformed as ever about events that affect their lives.

In the news business, this can arguably be traced back to the appearance of USA Today, a publication that was novel when it first appeared in the early ’80’s.  In many ways, this paper set the trend for the format of how news was to be presented as we see it today.  Up until its appearance, most newspapers were uniformly drab in appearance and pedestrian in their reportage.  When USA Today showed up, there was color on the pages, there were quick headlines supported by only short write-ups.  The paper was made for the hurried commuter interested only in scanning the headlines of news, sports and entertainment on a given workday.

Then the 24 hour news channels started up, the pioneer of which was CNN. All of a sudden, it was essential to fill the airwaves with ‘news’, but in short headline style delivery.  With the advent of the internet, Google, Yahoo and Bing News supplanted cable stations and newspapers as being primary sources of information.  It’s important to note the distinction between the modern news sources and the older newspapers.  Google, Bing and Yahoo are only aggregators of news, they actually don’t create it.   Their role is to cast as wide a net as possible to capture the most eyeballs to their sites.  While this may seem  democratic and in the spirit of free markets, in reality, the editors of those sites wield powerful control over the content which is presented on their sites thereby influencing public opinion as newspapers did in past generations.  The difference is that there are no editorial columns on the sites of the news aggregators; the influence is through the selection of stories that get to be featured prominently in their links.

For example, the influence of Justin Bieber in our culture (outside of the pimply set ) is wildly exaggerated by virtue of regular breathless stories of his exploits on any given day.  Same with Lindsay Lohan, P. Diddy, or any of the Kardashians.  We are bombarded by the inane and insane outbursts by such as Al Sharpton and Al Gore who are given platforms well beyond what they could muster if not aided by a willing media.  I suspect that most people never even bother to read the underlying stories, since the content is pretty much expected given the personalities involved.  Why bother to read the body of the story, since we know a story involving Sharpton involves imagined racism and a story involving Gore involves imagined warming.

The real sea change however is the art of headline writing.  To catch peoples’ attentions, dramatic headlines are the hook by which readers are drawn in.  In fact, headline writing continues as a skill in itself and if done correctly, obviates the need to read an entire story.  I recall years ago when Nikita Kruschev passed away; the headline was: “Top Red Dead”.  Today, we have reportage of Anthony Wiener’s brazen campaign for mayor in New York City offering headlines such as “Weiner support getting soft” or “Weiner support shrinking” and his response which states, “Wiener sticking it out”.   The President even waded into the situation by chastising Wiener.  So of course, the headline is “Obama beats Wiener”.

Perhaps no one today is as adept at the “story in a headline” technique as Matt Drudge in his eponymous  Drudge Report.  From nowhere 10 years ago to inarguably the most powerful media figure today (next to Roger Ailes ) his news site brings the top stories of the day concisely and bluntly.  As an example, the top headlines in today’s Drudge lists the following:

link Video – Kate Upton and the Rise of the Curvy Customer – WSJ.com.

Years ago, a business associate remarked that the Hong Kong women were all so stylistically  avant garde.  When asked why, the retort was that they were all getting breast implants to make them look curvier.  This was an odd observation to me because I had never known that curvy women had ever NOT been in fashion.

I tell this story because it illustrates the difference between what’s considered fashionable and what’s considered attractive.  As we know, the two can be poles apart.  Of course, different cultures will dictate distinct preferences as well.  In the African Masai culture, women with elongated necks are considered attractive.  In asian cultures, big feet on women are unappealing.  In many cultures, thickness is an attractive trait of otherwise ugly men…thickness of wallet that is.  In modern western culture, preposterously large breasts on an otherwise slim body are considered attractive in women.

For decades, western culture has been coerced to believe that a thin, almost boyish profile was the ideal for fashionable women.  This has  much to do with the fact that the fashion industry is dominated by gay personalities and so their tastes become our tastes.   In the extreme case, ‘heroin chic’ was the look desired for many runway models only a decade ago.  Even now, women still strive to attain a weight profile more resembling that of a 12 year old boy than a normal female.

Growing up,  it was Farrah, Raquel and Sophia, not Twiggy or Kate Moss that jump-started puberty in young boys.  To this day, women can aspire to be like Gwynneth, but speaking for all men, Christina Hendricks would likely be a more ideal dinner date.  The linked article implies that women are now accepting the ‘curves are good’ paradigm espoused by Kate Upton.  While you’d have to be awfully nearsighted to mistake Upton for a boy, she is hardly Rubenesque by any stretch.  Women may finally have come to realize that men are generally attracted to curvy women…at least straight men.

Perhaps the tyranny of the boyish look for women is coming to an end.  And this is a good thing.  Women can’t do it and men don’t like it.  To be candid, we’re talking curvy here,  not completely round.  That’s another discussion.  Now if we could only do something about tattoos….