The Outstater
Media: a Click Here, a Click There
IN THE INTEREST of saving you precious reading time, this column has recommended skipping articles under headlines that contain modal verbs, i.e., “should,” “must,” “ought.” To find examples, just pick up your morning newspaper, blog or sub stack. They will be full of it . . . I mean, full of them.
Modal verbs in journalism are excited attempts by the writer to position himself as “in the know” on a topic without actually knowing anything, or at least having to leave his desk or conduct a probing interview.
There often is the hint of exclusivity, that this is somehow privileged information. But there won’t be anything useful there, no credible sources named or citations offered.
I have another time-saving tip for your news-reading. Skip the mock interrogative. Articles beneath headlines that presume to ask questions but really just press an opinion are a waste of your time at best and a deception at worse. Again, no useful info.
How sad. Socrates used unrelenting questioning to get nearer the truth. The above is the opposite. The questioner is not expecting an answer or even a better question only your attention as in, “Gee, that sounds interesting.”
The reason for all of this is that mass media, despite the high-tech hoopla, has reverted to the practice of “hawking,” e.g., news boys shouting out exaggerated headlines from a street corner for nickels and dimes. Today, this is done by trolling for clicks on the Internet. Or is that called click-baiting?
Whatever, this writing for clicks is something quite different in incentive from writing for gimlet-eyed editors or, ultimately, serious readers.
The ideal Internet headline is negative and alarmist. It reads something like, “Is the World Ending? Read All About It Here.” But you won’t be reading all about it there. Again, there will be no reliable source and your understanding of when the world will end will not be improved one whit. A click is just a click.
More rarely, it is promotional or boosterish. An example: “Will the New Data Center, (or stadium, or commercial center, or mixed-use apartments with parking garage, etc.) Make Us All Rich?” The article itself, however, makes clear that understanding the financing of the project required more time than the reporter was willing to invest.
This new type of hawking will end as did the old type — with paid subscriptions that bring the more prescient and therefore more trusted news sources directly into the home or office. We want news sources that will definitively answer our questions not pretend to ask us questions. The National Enquirer’s old slogan, “Inquiring Minds Want to Know,” was spot on, albeit self-aggrandizing.
The legendary Robert Bartley, patron of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, addressed this point 25 years ago:
“Clearly the journalistic torch is being passed to the increasingly ubiquitous Internet. What is this likely to mean to the craft of journalism? Nothing truly fundamental. At least that’s my answer. The heart of our business is not printing, but editing. Our ambition is succinct: To provide our readers with what they want to know before they think to ask for it. With the flood of information now pulsing around the world, this skill becomes more important than ever. So in the new world of electronic journalism, we see mostly opportunity.
But if you have read his formerly great page lately, print or digital, now heavy with mock interrogatives, you know all of that is a ways in front of us. — tcl
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