Headlines R News
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: