http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/26/harris/ I was just reading that article last night which deals with the same link-baiting issues news organizations deal with. Sorry to see this stuff on CNN though. Usually I find them the soberest of the big media, minus Lou Dobbs.

I think what the internet enabled is actually the opposite. Internet enabled us to get more perspective instead of trusting what the major news source tells us.

Yes loretta. Definitely! I wasn't saying the Internet was innately a bad thing - but rather there are some negative side effects... One of them being that newspapers are lowering accuracy on their import list and raising sensationalism. Eventually what we'll hopefully see is a news site rise up because it sticks with completely accurate information and headlines and people come to respect that. But for now, it's still a gold rush for newspapers to capture Internet mindshare and they are willing to do whatever it takes.

Bad journalism is bad journalism whether it's in traditional print or on-line. The internet maybe the tool of the lazy journalist, but it also helps readers to check and cross reference facts and inform themselves.

That's kind of my point. The problem is that legitimate news is competing with lazy journalism and having no choice but to be lazy themselves in order to compete. Geographic boundaries used to mean that a news source was just competing with other newspapers within that boundary. Without those boundaries legitimate news has no choice but to turn to the dark side.

I don't think that Google Trends is an accurate way to numerically represent the public's interests. Keep in mind that a substantial number of those Angelina Jolie Google searches are our fellow internet users out looking for porn, not news.

You have to understand that newspapers and other news outlets are businesses just like any other. Yea, they should be more careful with the information they're presenting, but they're just trying to stay afloat in this craptastic economy like any other business. Does this excuse their behavior? Certainly not, but it's a side of the story you should consider.

Unfortunately, it's come down to the point where you'll see many news organizations scramble for page views, rather than focus on developing new, innovative ways to tell stories. Headlines drive page views, which will bring in ad dollars. It's that simple.

What would be nice is if (like Daniel mentioned) some site came out with a beautiful Web 2.0 way of displaying news and telling stories. It could show cause and effect, perhaps: This happened -> what caused it? -> what else did this cause? | V This also happened as a result of the original event. It would create great big webs of cause and effect! What say you all?

I think it's great that internet news is replacing traditional forms. I am sick and tired of being spoon fed what some corporate big shot thinks is news I need to know. Power to the people!

Before mentioning any teenagers, the article you linked clearly says, "Children as young as 6 have been forced to have sex with aid workers and peacekeepers in return for food and money, Save the Children UK said in a report released Tuesday." It's sensationalist, but how exactly is that inaccurate or a "bait-and-switch?"

You're wrong about when journalism began to decline. That decline began in the Thatcher and Reagan years, more or less coinciding with the rise of Rupert Murdoch, who made his fortune on paying almost no tax. It was well and truly on the way down over a decade before the internet became a phenomenon.

Not that I blame Murdoch entire, he was just one of the bigger players.

I changed my college major six months ago, from journalism to psychology. This isn't because I disliked the field, but I saw it for what it was developing into, an entertainment/sensationalist field driven by profit instead of facts. Even the classes I took all pushed the idea that E.R. Murrow style of truth and neutrality is dying and they just want their story out first whether or not it's done right. Even NPR has fallen prey to this kind of stuff. I wouldn't say it's lazy journalism though, i'd say rather it's more like price-point journalism. What's the most you're willing to pay in time, money, and energy before you kick a writer off your staff for not fitting into the corporate required profit margin?

This is a very bad example of why the mainstream media is losing credibility. First of all the most important way that the mainstream media ( controlled by the establishment, CFR, NWO ) hoodwink viewers is by simply not mentioning what is really going on in the world. There is so much evil going on that is being done intentionally by .... guess who ... the same groups of people who own the controlled corporate media. One small example: why isn't it front page news that the the leaders of the US, Canada, and Mexico have met numerous times to discuss their plan to merge these countries into the North American Union with a common currency and and laws that supersede these countries laws? Lesser but still very powerful officials of all these countries have also met to discuss this. Congress has not been consulted. This is not even 1/1000 of the terrible things going on behind the scenes. Who could have guessed that the powers that be would make sure they could control public opinion. Wake up people, there's way more evil and deception going on than most people know.

Despite the general point of your article, that media tends to be unacceptably sensationalistic, which I agree with, your point about this article isn't so clearly backed up. The fact that the particular person quoted in the pull quote (one of many abused) isn't herself one of the 6-year olds -- I don't see as a bait-and switch. The article does mention that 6 years old were involved. Only the second paragraph of the article claims: "Children as young as 6 have been forced to have sex with aid workers and peacekeepers in return for food and money, Save the Children UK said in a report released Tuesday." If the claims quoted are true, they are tragic and should not be downplayed.

Great discussion, thanks for this article. Coming from a journalist, I think that the two biggest problems that media consumers face today are the deregulation of media ownership by the FCC, going hand-in-hand with the fact that print & broadcast profits are on a decline. When the medium is truly a public trust, the newsroom's top priority is staying relevant and loyal to its readers. Unfortunately for a lot of magazines and newspapers, the public gets their information online -- it is a good thing, but no one has figured out how a news site can support an 800-person staff of reporters, photographers, accountants, salespeople, designers, editors, and other office support staff (about the average size of a major metro daily). The cost of a color, full-page Bergdorf Goodman ad in the New York Times Sunday Style section does NOT cost the same as a Bergdorf Goodman banner on nytimes.com. Businesses are compelled to go for the cheaper advertising on blogs and news sites rather than the pricey paper version... which is why I don't think there's anything wrong with news sites trying to drum up traffic. Like our readers, we have families to feed, and student loans to pay. When the medium must answer to the likes of Rupert Murdock, Les Moonves and the other handful of old dudes who own the nation's newsrooms, the public trust isn't the top priority -- the bottom line is. Ratings. Rate base. Paid Circ. Money matters above all. Staff cuts. Underfunding for investigative stories. "Why Barney is Killing Your Child -- More at 11." And so on. It is indeed a disgrace, and a scary, scary time to be a journalist.

While they call it "news," Old Media companies are actually in the "entertainment" business. As such, headlines are designed to attract the maximum reaction / audience; a time proven method in modern times most associated with the National Enquirer, but increasingly fully embraced by "mainstream" media. In their relentless pursuit of ratings, Old Media companies are losing their credibility. Indeed, they are falling upon their own sword in their efforts to compete with "New Media" such as YouTube and blogs.

I think the Internet is the death of everything. Everything. /sarcasm You realize that your own headline fits into the category of Digg-inspired sensationalism by using a single example to back up your point, right? (Well, okay, two if you count Darfur, but that's an easy target.) Where's the substance? I have thought about this problem — that clicks are important for generating ad revenue, so editors will reach for misleading (or incomplete) headlines to generate traffic. It's the Internet equivalent of "more at 11." In CNN's case, it looks like an honest mistake, something that's not inconceivable given the sheer volume of news online editors are asked to handle at any given time. But these tactics, intentional or otherwise, are nothing new. Journalism didn't die with the Internet or television (similar complaints have been leveled at 24-hour news). The Internet is just taking up the banner of our ADD-infused culture. I'm afraid the fault, dear Avi, lies not in the medium, but in ourselves.

The MSM has been full of nothing of scum bags in control of the wealthy since at least the rise of Industrialism. The only difference today is that the Internet makes it more obvious, and more critical that an alternative replace the Controlled media. For revolution, BANA

pidgas, merely mentioning a 6-year-old as a footnote in the story (no matter how high up it appears) doesn't make it the subject of the story. There is literally nothing more mentioned about the 6-year-old in this story at all. It does not warrant a title. In fact, it barely warrants being included in the story, except to "justify" being the title of the story. Worse: The description right beneath the title is deliberately misleading. In the article story it is clearly referring to the 15-year-old girl. Yet in the description that appears in conjunction with the title it reads as if it's referring to the 6-year-old.

I have no problem with such titles because I know that if I want readers to notice good article, I have to catch their attention with titles like this one. There's no much to debate about that, it's logic of selling newspapers and it was (mostly) established by readers. And, believe me, i would be first to make change if half-heartedly titles would mean something to (most of the) readers. That's sad true. (I apologize for my bad English)

you, sir, the OP, are naive to say the least, if you think that news from "classical" sources have much credibility. Why would you think that? have you checked the world we are living in lately? have you done any research at all at how credible "classical" news sources are? It really doesnt take any effort, all you have to do is think about it.

oh sorry, after reading your comments (like comment #5), i have to say, that you sir, are an idiot!

A similar thing happened a few days ago. Several news outlets reported that insurgents in Iraq had used an 8 year old girl to carry out an suicide bombing, based on US army sources. It emerged later on that the girl had been a teenager and the army retracted the former statement, but many news websites failed to update their articles. The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Mail and The Metro newspapers in the UK still have the incorrect report up, with no attempt made at correcting it.

I agree - this mistake should not have happened. But what many readers don't realise, is that journalists rarely write the headings of their own stories. I work at a newspaper as a journalist, and can count on one hand the headings that I wrote myself. Usually it is the job of a subeditor to write the headings. And it sometimes happens (as has happened with some of my stories) that they get it wrong. That doesn't make the article less valid. It just means that there are many sloppy subeditors.

The free press is definitely a two-sided coin. On one side it carries the responsibility as the fourth estate, a noble and very much needed role. On the other, it is a business and therefore subject to the laws of supply and demand (in this case, readership). So, as with most other industries in the free market, if demand should drive supply. In other words, if people begin to care more about Darfur than Branjelina, the press will react accordingly.

My biggest peeve with the US media today is how they've neglected their fourth-estate responsibility lately. I am an American who has lived in Ukraine before and after the Orange Revolution in 2004. Ukrainian media has historically been egregiously manipulated and journalists routinely persecuted and bought off. While it's been great seeing journalistic freedom begin to move toward western levels, it seems the US media, which I coincidentally noticed with the entrance of Fox News, if moving towards Ukrianian levels than the reverse.

Angelina is a very poor example of pure celebrity garbage that people shouldn't want to read over Darfur. What, with her being the most socially, globally, aware celebrity there is, doing tonnes of charity work, donating a third of her income straight to charity, being a UN ambassador, visiting some of the worlds most affected areas by poverty, disease, and war. Including, this year, Iraq. Yeah, you could have picked Ashlee Simpson or Lindsay Lohan. The spectrum of Angelina searches is far wider than current, pure celebrity, gossip.

Watch mainstream media to find out what you are supposed to think. In this election year it has become nothing more than propaganda. Money and media are a support function of politicians and thus the votes of the people are manipulated to produce a desired result. Without independent media the Republic will be destroyed.

what does this have to do with brad and angelina?

Great discussion. An open, transparent and credible media industry is a cornerstone of democracy. Unfortunately, the trends have not been positive. It's easy to blame journalists or media corporations (who have to pay the bills), but I'd like to see news readers and journalists work together to solve this problem pro-actively.

As Avi and Malcom mention, a site that is built with the goal of replacing popularity focused news with quality/crediblity focused news is what we all need. Its something I've been working on at NewsCred. We just launched it, but we have a passionate team, and a very loyal community. Our ultimate goal is to give news readers a voice, and to provide a platform for them to voice their opinions and aggregate the community opinion and track media credibility trends over time.

So far, we've just built the foundation, and now are working on pushing out features that will really help move our vision forward. We're working with journalists to try and make it into a product that will help both news readers and news producers alike. If anyone wants to get involved or try it out, shoot me a mail at shafqat[at]newscred.com!

What did you expect? Boobs are more enjoyable than human suffering.

My favorite bit of breaking CNN News reported that IRANIANS!!! were in Nlorth Korea when they created the big boom that might have been a sub-critical nuclear test. (They failed to note that underground, :"subcritical" testing that has continued at the Nevada nuclear test site for years since the ban on above ground nuclear testing.) Instead, the story was that IRANIANS!!!! had been in North Korea at the time of their nuclear test---or whatever it was---underground.

I don't know. This article complains about sloppy research and sensationalism. Sloppy research admittedly is a problem. But now that we get our facts online, a lot of eyes and quick updates ensure that false stories can be corrected "on the fly", and often they are. What worries me more than sensationalism (which was always a part of the business, just like lengthy, well-researched background articles and everything in between) is something else. Every basement-dwelling Jack and Jill can put up a weblog and let the world know about what he found in his navel this morning or on another blog or Google News. That's all fine and dandy. But real-world journalism requires sending human beings (journalists and photographers) to foreign places, which tends to cost a lot of money. A paper is a business, and when times are rough, they will try to save money. So more and more papers rely on a steadily shrinking number of sources. And this leads to a homogenization of sources. A monoculture with very few sources (agencies) and many outlets using their material means that many mainstream media will essentially use the same material and do very little to enrich it with background information and commentary. And of course, fact-checking becomes harder, too when you only have one guy flown in instead of two or three independent sources. E.g., I used to check the four or five relevant news portals in my country, but that's not required anymore. Both the words and the sequence of the top stories are often the same in all of them, with a few negligible variations. However, there is no spooky New World Order conglomerate, no conspiracy behind this (we're not the US ;) - It's just companies saving money by buying and printing the same stuff as everyone else. And that scares me. I can live with sensationalism (e.g. by avoiding it). But I can't live without pluralism.

I have worried about this kind of media sensationalism for a long time. In fact I now don't allow newspapers in my home because of it. That is a personal choice, made because I see the world deteriorating around me, tens of thousands dying and yet the media gives disasters a cursory glance and then gets back to politicians and celebrities having sex as soon as possible. "Sex sells" and our media is obsessed by it. They regularly and purposefully mix up what is in the public interest, with what is of interest to the public. I think that's dangerous, wrong and immoral. Personally, I want a press that is truthful and tells me news. No matter how boring the editor thinks it is, their job is to tell me what is new today in my world (funnily enough, that's "new" as in "news") Anyway I don't want to contribute to the cycle that this story is one example of. This is by no means limited to newspapers, though IMHO they are by far the worst examples of this practice. I think it is driven by the notion that it is okay to write an attention grabbing headline to get the punters in, no matter what the cost. It doesn't matter if it is true, or just mis-representative, as long as the it sells product. Yes, media empires are, as has been stated here, businesses and they do have to make money. But not at the expense of lives and the truth. The single factor that I believe is behind this, is the big players own most of the media and so we are told what to think and who to vote for by those individuals. Take Murdoch as a key example. The culture of a media that will tell a story to sell product and then simply buy a way out of trouble if that story is wrong, leaves a public that is now driven by media, but not able to trust it. That is a huge issue when it comes to elections of governments (pointed out earlier). Having a media that uses headlines to influence people on mass is a very dangerous place to end up. Not everyone who bothers to vote, thinks about this stuff. Many are so media weary that they tune in to the headlines they recall and make their mind up about which box to tick from there. Let's not forget that we are influenced by these headlines on deeper social issues such as pornography and pedophiles a well. To a point where we are now so afraid that we altar our behaviour because of it. Take children being at risk as an example. It is statistically as likely today that a child will be snatched off the street by a stranger a sit was 25 years ago, but the media, through their headlines, would have us believe it is far more dangerous. 25 years ago kids played in the streets and didn't cause the problems that we have now. While a free press seems to me to be a good thing, when it comes to places like the Middle East and Africa (to name a few), I do think that perhaps the time has come to tackle their attitudes. This will be hard to do, but just because something is hard, that is not a reason to ignore it. My forefathers did not fight to leave me a world like this. They fought for something quite different. As I recall it they fought for truth and freedom and in the UK, every 11th of the 11th we trawl out the poppies and march up Whitehall to remember them. Pity we don't think about what has happened to the truth and freedom. Just what I think.

I think this was not the best example. The headline is sensationalist but supported in the article and the report from which it was pulled. Your point however, is still valid. On the 5/29 front page of cnn.com there is an article headline, "Aerosmith's Tyler in Rehab." Of course anyone knowing anything about either Steven Tyler or how the word "rehab" is used in the press would come to the conclusion that Tyler was on drugs. Article is about recuperating from foot pain. Is the headline trying to suggest Tyler was addicted to pain killers?

Of course! All news sources would rather lie than die, which I find despicable. It seems like theonion is more accurate.

As a person who works in the news industry, I have seen a shift from "reporting the news" to "selling the news". I am not slamming journalists, it's the companies they work for that I am critical of. Before the internet, print and broadcast were constantly competing for viewers and readers. Now, print has taken third place to the battle between broadcast and the internet and because of these battles, all the news services have lost sight of "responsible journalism" over the "bottom line." Don't get me wrong, I am not an idealist, at the end of the day businesses have to make a buck, we all need to make a living, but, the aforementioned irresponsible journalism has become the norm because news groups need to sell a product. The worst example of "irresponsibility" was the 2000 Presidential Elections. I was working the night of the elections and our newsroom was going crazy because CNN and FOX were constantly fighting to "scoop" each other. It was so bad, both networks were reporting polls in states closing a half hour to an hour earlier than scheduled. Meanwhile, the wires and other news services (which we constantly use) reported polls not closed, voting still was still taking place. We were shocked. Selling the news as apposed to reporting the news is the current flavor. Sad.

I am 37 years old. I saw news go from information to infotainment (90s) to entertainment. I loved the infotainment era of early Dateline, 20/20 and 48 hours. Now I avoid news as it is mostly a waste of my time. Luckily CBC and BBC can still provide an accurate stream of World News. The dire state of news in the US is evident by CNNs vast entertainment section compared to it's insufficient Africa news page. The story you refer to has been followed by BBC over the course of the last few monts, however it did not hit the CNN front page until there was enough pornography in it to excite the viewer's curiosity.

Excellent essay and site. I put a link to your compassion essay on my website. Good work.

It seems like theonion is more accurate.

I read your blog and its amazed me. Nice blog!

This is great! Really. I'll make my own little contribution to the list soon

Good post! Thanks for your information! Related press releases ugg boots keep your feet warm What are you waiting for except uggs? Why Uggs are so popular? ugg australia New styles of ugg sale for people cheap ugg boots just ready for you bailey button ugg boots are your best choice Buying Ugg boots online classic tall ugg boots tiffany ed hardy chanel classic short ugg boots prada bbc coogi gucci hoody classic cardy ugg boots just cavalli laguna beach jeans timberland lanvin classic mini ugg boots china wholesale tiffany chanel jewelry,metallic ugg boots nike shox oz,r4 sneakers,nightfall ugg boots womens jordan high boots,sundance ii ugg boots 10-UGG BOOTS,gucci adidas jackets,ultra tall ugg boots louis vuitton jeans at sell Adidas jimmy scoot, adidas sanba, puma lazy,Chestnut Ugg Knightsbridge Boot-UGG Knightsbridg, nike jordan 23,ultra short ugg boots MBT women's shoes,The winner of UGG -cheap ugg boots, j1.5, j5 shoes Gucci by Gucci, Gucci in 1921 in Florence.Gucci Handbags Gucci products including fashion, Gucci UK is an Italian fashion brand, Gucci Shoes by Gucci, Gucci in 1921 in Florence.Gucci Handbags Gucci products including fashion, Gucci UK leather, shoes, watches, Gucci Mens Shoes tie, scarves, perfume, Gucci Womens Shoes household goods and pet supplies, Gucci Handbags Chinese translation gucci, gucci. Gucci Wallets Gucci brand fashion all along famed with high-grade, luxurious, Tiffany jewellery sex appeal at the world, with "of the identity and fortune indicative" brand image makes rich brownstone consumption favorite, has always been business circles personage all along, Gucci Handbags Sale fashionable do not break decorous.Gucci Bags Gucci now is Italy's biggest fashion groupshamwow

aion kinah

aion kinah

whats the matter?