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LRT: Headline writing isn't the only thing wrong with journalism but a culture shift in how headlines are written would honestly solve a lot and make much of the stuff it doesn't fix less pressing.
Whenever I talk about the problem of headline writing, I get someone telling me, "You don't understand, they write them certain ways to grab people's attention and for SEO. It's the standard in the industry."
I do understand that. It's part of the problem.
I do understand that. It's part of the problem.
I mean, it's the "most talked-about offender" because it's the most talked about newspaper, not because it handles headlines uniquely.
The LRT was about WaPo, so frequently the Gallant to NYT's Goofus in terms of papers of record in popular imagining.
The LRT was about WaPo, so frequently the Gallant to NYT's Goofus in terms of papers of record in popular imagining.
I'm well aware of the problem of conservatives working the refs with decades of dishonest whining about a supposed "liberal media bias" and the New York Times's particular co-dependent relationship with conservatism. I mean, I think I talk about them enough.
You can say "Fix headlines and there are still other problems at the NYT", which I feel like I covered? But on the other hand... even *good* articles and op-eds are getting bad, deceptive, destructive headlines. Fix everything else and you still have the headline problem.
Perhaps the most talked-about example in recent days was the NYT and their story about the whistleblower consulting with HPSCI, where story was "law and procedure were followed and Adam Schiff had nothing to do with the whistleblower" and the headline was... not that.
The big trick in conservative and reactionary propaganda circles is to control the frame for a story by pre-contextualizing it for their audience. I saw this so many times from Gamergate: make a claim that this link you're going to share will clearly show threats to gamers, etc.
And then it's a screenshot of some journalists BSing in a chat channel and saying something negative but not actually that sensationalistic or wrong about Gamergate's demographics.
But the reactionary mob, having been told "you will see threats" would look at the chat transcript and lo and behold, they would see the threats. Phrases like "they can go hang" or "they can rot" become deadly threat to motivated reasoners who have been told threats are there.
Donald Trump and his enablers use this one wholesale. How could anyone think the "transcript" exonerated him? For one thing, he said it did. The very fact that he released it backs that up in the believer's mind.
So the NYT puts up their story with an inaccurate, inflammatory headline and fifty-eleven GOP politicians and pundits QT it with "BOOM." and "Schiff's got to go." and "Looks like Schiff orchestrated the whole thing."
And I'm not saying they wouldn't try that no matter the headline, but a better headline at least adds the extra step of they have to sum up the information badly on their own websites and link to that. They don't have the *retching noises* Old Gray Lady's clout for the middle.
And so we're treated to the absurd spectacle of journalists who did serious, solid reporting having to reply individually to right-wing propagandists' tweets to explain that no, their article doesn't say what the headline pretty clearly states.
I mean, I have been saying this for a while now.
Headlines are messages. Even when we read the article, headlines shape how we take them. A misleading headline... misleads the reader of the article.
Headlines are messages. Even when we read the article, headlines shape how we take them. A misleading headline... misleads the reader of the article.
Re:NYT - the opinion section is a fever swamp, but the biggest problems on the reporting side are editorial judgment: what gets covered, where it's placed, and how it's positioned by the headline and related material.
A culture shift that fixed headlines would address that.
A culture shift that fixed headlines would address that.
