Here's a little inside baseball as to how media companies compete for your attention online, though what I have to say will probably surprise nobody. Ever since websites emerged in the mid-1990s, media companies (actually all companies) have been attempting to optimize their content in order to have a better shot at higher rankings in the search engines that crawl the web.
By now, "search" is just another word for Google, so most of the SEO (search engine optimization) that occurs is geared toward achieving better results on Google. Keywords -- the main search terms people use -- such as "spring training" -- will yield the latest on what people probably are searching for, in this case how the major league baseball teams are doing this exhibition season.
A website can rent keywords, but media companies experiment with the headlines on their stories to see which sequence of words attracts the most visitors organically. In this context, a fascinating blog post by TJCX
<https://blog.tjcx.me/p/new-york-times-ab-testing>
explores how frequently the New York Times performs A/B tests on its headlines. In an A/B test, the audience is divided in half, with one half served the A headline and the other half the B headline.
This goes on for a short period of time, perhaps 30 minutes, until a pattern becomes clear. Then, the Times (like others) will switch all the audience over to the more successful headline.
One recent example was a Times report of Meghan Markle's interview with Oprah Winfrey. A headline emphasizing that Markle felt suicidal, which was a minor part of the interview, played much better than a headline indicating a more accurate summary of the interview. So the switch was made emphasizing the suicide angle.
It's well-known that the more emotional the headline, the more likely it will draw interest.
That media companies feel they have to do this is not surprising, because they are dependent on the traffic they get from Google and the other social media companies. Without the traffic, they don't make money.
From a journalistic perspective, using these clickbait headlines violates our primary obligation, which is to write accurate headlines. But media companies have increasingly gotten away from this standard in recent times.
I sympathize with the dilemma executives face in an era when social media is driving the news cycle. But over the long term I worry that this process they will lose the trust of their audiences in order to compete with the likes of BuzzFeed.
***
The news:
* Ten dead in shooting at Colorado supermarket (CNN)
* U.S., E.U., Canada, Britain announce sanctions on China over human rights abuses of Uyghurs (WaPo)
* Evidence collected on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is "trending towards" sedition charges, said Michael Sherwin, who until Friday served as the lead investigator in the Justice Department's probe. Sherwin also said former President Donald Trump is under investigation for his role. On a different network, constitutional law expert Laurence Tribe said he thought evidence supports sedition charges against Trump for the riot. [HuffPost]
* The key question as the House considers D.C. statehood: Do we believe in the ‘consent of the governed’ or not? (WaPo)* Disneyland to Open in Late April (NYT) * The Supreme Court agreed to consider the Justice Department's bid to reinstate Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's death sentence for helping carry out the 2013 attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others. (Reuters) * Maskless mobs of spring breakers have engaged in debauchery and sometimes violence in Miami Beach, leading city officials to extend a state of emergency from Thursday through Sunday until at least April 12. Critics and some city leaders believe the partiers flocked to Miami Beach because of Florida Gov. Ron De Santis' (R) lax COVID-19 regulations. [HuffPost] * Biden sends envoys to Mexico, Guatemala asking help on migrant flow (Reuters) |
* Fully Vaccinated and Time to Party: If You Are 70 (NYT)
* Senator Mark Warner said on Monday he has been talking to President Joe Biden’s staff about his bill that would make Google, Twitter and Facebook more accountable for allegedly enabling cyber-stalking, targeted harassment and discrimination on their platforms by amending Section 230, which protects tech platforms from liability over content users post. (Reuters)
* Bill to aid U.S. publishers vs. Google, Facebook rises again (AP)
* Archaeologists find earliest colonial site in Maryland after a nearly 90-year search (WaPo)
* Democrats are pushing a sweeping package of voting rights and ethics reforms that contains an item to require independent political groups that don't have to disclose their donations — so-called dark money donations — to do so. However, Democrats actually dominate dark money spending, not Republicans. [HuffPost]
* In Kabul’s Streets, Dogs Rule the Night -- Almost every city in the world has to deal with street crime, and some with dog packs. But few, if any, have to navigate such an underworld while also confronting unrelenting war. (NYT)
* Tony La Russa Returns to the Dugout After a Decade Away -- After a long rebuild, the White Sox are World Series contenders. They are turning to a 76-year-old manager who hasn’t been in the dugout for a decade. (WSJ)
* Water hundreds of feet below the surface of Lake Michigan is warming, especially in winter, according to a report published last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The warming could change the seasonal patterns of the lake — and alter a way of life for ecosystems and industry alike. (AP)
* Top-seeded Michigan beat LSU 86-78 to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. (CBS)
* City’s Little Italy Now Down To Single Meatball (The Onion)
***
When blackness was a virtue the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm
I'll always do my best for her, on that I give my word
In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm
Everything up to that point had been left unresolved
Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm
Thanks to my daughter Laila Comolli, also a journalist, who pointing me to the blog post by TGCX.
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