Taylor Momsen Did Not Write This Slashdot Headline 192
Hugh Pickens writes "David Carr writes that headlines in newspapers and magazines were once written with readers in mind, to be clever or catchy or evocative, but now headlines are just there to get the search engines to notice. Hence the headline for this story that includes a prized key word for one of the 'Gossip Girls' — just the thing to push this Slashdot summary to the top of Google rankings. 'All of the things that make headlines meaningful in print — photographs, placement, and context — are nowhere in sight on the Web,' writes Carr. Headlines have become, as Gabriel Snyder, the recently appointed executive editor of Newsweek.com, says, 'naked little creatures that have to go out into the world to stand and fight on their own.' In this context, 'Jon Stewart Slams Glenn Beck' is the ideal headline, guaranteed to pull in thousands of pageviews. And while nobody is suggesting that the Web should somehow accommodate the glories of The New York Post's headlines in that paper's prime, some of its classics would still work. 'Remember "Headless Body in Topless Bar," perhaps the most memorable New York Post headline ever? It's direct, it's descriptive, and it's oh-so-search-engine-friendly. And not a Taylor Momsen in sight.'"
A-freaking-men! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a technology journalist now working for a web-exclusive publication after years of working in print. And headlines have gone from being one of the most fun parts of the job to one of the worst. I've had endless arguments with editors who will freak out if there's anything even the slightest bit clever or sly about a headline--if it's not packed with keywords, all properly researched via Google Trends and Omniture and God knows how many other vetting systems, it's just not wanted at all. It's horrific, and does the readers a tremendous disservice.
The bigger problem is that the problem isn't limited to just headlines. Stories have to be constructed the same way, with this many mentions of the lead product or whatever in the deck and the first and last paragraphs, with the full product name used this many times, with this many links out to this many other sites... Journalism, at least the form of it I'm involved in, is no longer about informing people or telling stories, it's all about getting picked up by Google. The training I had never dared call that journalism. Once upon a time, it was known as advertising.
Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no idea who Taylor Momsen is and I never heard of that headline but the Headline was clever.
Whatever Happened to Tagging and Meta Data? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hypothetically this would allow you to put something very clever and catchy as a headline and then insert the obvious keywords into a meta tag to help out search engines. You could even avoid all the keywords.
Also, engines like Google were designed for you to be agnostic as to what each engine was doing. Tailoring yourself to one search engine doesn't only ruin what they're trying to accomplish but also what you're trying to accomplish which is being informative to readers, not the search engine. Know, respect and cater to your audience and they will stay with you through the hard times.
Re:A-freaking-men! (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want to write good and witty headlines head to Fark, perhaps point Fark out to your boss also.
Write the general headline, write the Fark headline, show your boss where the most hits came from.
It's my good fortune to lack the foggiest idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
... who Taylor Momsen is. And even better, I lack any desire to find out.
"Clever" headlines impress only other writers (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly, I hate 'clever' headlines which manage to work in some rather stupid pun while declining to actually say what the freaking article is about. It may make headline writing 'fun' for writers, but it just annoys everyone else. *You* want to be clever - *I* just want to decide whether the article is actually about something I'm interested in.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
(Or does this mean I get a slashdot street-cred point for not knowing who this person is? Or do I lose one? I can never keep track these days.)
It's easy: You lose points for not just [f***ing] googling the name.
And this is different... how? (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, the notion of a headline crafted for a non-journalistic purpose has been around for a long time. In the print era, it was optimized for what was most likely to catch/attract a reader who is walking by a newsstand. (There is a reason the headlines on print newspapers are so gigantic.) Nowadays the headlines are being optimized for what an online reader is most likely to stumble across or search for. In both cases, the headline is an advertisement for the article. It is meant to induce you to go check out the product.
As long as there is a profit motive behind journalism/news, there will be a conflict between what the distributor wants (to make money) and what the consumer wants (to be informed). That's more or less fine, since we've achieved a decent balance. But that does mean there are some inefficiencies (like infuriatingly misleading headlines).
Re:A-freaking-men! (Score:5, Insightful)
the media seems to be gradually going to a "feel good" news dystopia.
Well, then, that's a welcome relief from the current "you're surrounded by terrorists and child rapists panic Panic PANIC!!" news dystopia.
Re:A-freaking-men! (Score:5, Insightful)
> my definition of real journalism is that "Something seems to stink @ X";
> the rest is all propaganda
If you don't realize that the muckraking stories are sometimes propaganda as well you are very naive.
Thought this was normal for Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Recent example:
Microsoft Mice Made in Chinese Youth Sweatshops? [slashdot.org]
makes for more views than
Several Technology Companies Reported to Use Child Labor at Chinese Youth Sweatshop [slashdot.org]
even though it's as true. (To be fair, all other media outlets did the same thing, ignoring companies like Apple and Best Buy who used the same factory.)
This is pretty typical - every day I see at least one article where the headline misrepresents or outright contradicts the actual article. Pretty much everyone, in the interests of page views and advertising revenue, will sacrifice journalistic integrity and truth.
Re:And this is different... how? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:1 Step of Indirection == Instant Confusion? (Score:4, Insightful)
Correct.
People used to react to headlines in making a decision to purchase a newspaper. Now they search for topics of interest in making a decision to click through to whomever has the info they wanted before they went looking for news.
Once they had the newspaper in their hands, they unfolded it to discover that the only interesting headline was above the fold on the front page, and the rest was crap written by communications majors.
Now they read the article, then go back to the search engine to find other things they want to know, often on exactly the same topic.
I.e., newspapers are no longer 80 pages long, 300 on Sunday. They're 1 story deep, 24/7/365 (but really 9-5 on weekdays because even on the internet you can't get people to work any time other than the space between breakfast and dinner).
The salacious nature of headlines has actually been reduced. "If it bleeds it leads" is no longer the most profitable strategy. Breadth of topics and close tracking of current topicality are more valuable, and more likely to get people to pluck the leaves from your tree (and with them the parasitic corporate eggs ads that are glued to their undersides).
Re:A-freaking-men! (Score:1, Insightful)
Or "you're surrounded by terrorists and child rapists and [political party] is to blame"