Chasing eyeballs
The Washington Post's Joel Achenbach seems to have visited the newsroom "Local Information Center" where I work:
Newspaper journalism is different these days: Suddenly everyone is obsessed with eyeballs, page views, "stickiness," "click-through rates," and so on. No one shouts "Stop the presses!" anymore, but they do whimper "Why aren't I on the home page?" ...Our future is on the Web. This is the mantra in newsrooms. And the Web lets us discover how many readers each article attracts. The data can be scrutinized in real time, moment to moment. Inevitably, this is going to change the way we do business -- excuse me, I mean the way we do journalism.
A dramatic example already exists at the Daily Telegraph in London, where the brand-new newsroom is arrayed like radial spokes, with the Web operation at the center. Everyone can see an electronic board that lists the articles attracting the most eyeballs at that precise moment on the Web. It's like a page-view shrine.
The Telegraph's electronic board reminds me of those trivia games in bars, where they show you the high scores from around the world. Their celebration of page-view "scores" is an invitation to game the stats.
We have a similar arrangement in our newsroom LIC, except instead of a scoreboard we have four flat plasma screens displaying the home page of our site to the four corners of the world. It's not a "page-view shrine," but it is a shrine to the idea that the Web is just another broadcast medium and that hypertext is nothing more than printed text on a computer TV screen.
Achenbach:
The print version of an article may eventually be considered just a prelude to the more complete, annotated story that runs online with a complement of raw documents, outtakes, reactions, contrarian views, reader comments and, needless to say, videos. Web sites are more and more like broadcast outlets. (Film at 11!) The more significant question is whether subject matter and tone will change as we attempt to get eyeballs ("drive traffic" is the operative phrase). It's interesting that so many news organizations recently had stories about the wives of presidential candidates, such as smokin'-hot Jeri Thompson, wife of Fred (who, OK, isn't a candidate yet). At what point does it start to feel like something you'd see on "Nancy Grace"?
Not so much "Nancy Grace" as Ron Burgundy's Channel 4 News Team. The Web has supercharged the local-TV-news-ification of newspapers. "The most important Web site for mainstream news outlets is the Drudge Report," Achenbach writes, "the No. 1 source of readers coming 'horizontally,' via links, into newspaper Web sites." Drudge, Ron Burgundy. Same thing. The scramble for eyeball-points leads to an emphasis on the same 30-second stories that shape local TV news: fire, crime, car crashes, weather and traffic, all presented in prefab tropes that make every house fire, holdup, traffic accident and rain storm sound exactly the same.
Here is a modest proposition: Regardless of the media platform in which you present the news, your readers/viewers/listeners ought to be better-informed and smarter after the experience than they were before.
Apply that standard to the current Powerball frenzy. These stories -- almost none of which explores the difference between advertised and actual jackpots, the odds against winning (and the incalculable odds against being the sole winner), where this money comes from or where this money goes -- might as well be written in lead-based ink because everyone who reads them gets a little bit dumber. Scores of newspapers today reported only that the "jackpot climbed higher," but you won't see a single headline explaining this is because millions of proles spent their money and nobody won. The chase for eyeballs has everyone rushing to write the same, misleading story. My guess is that had anyone taken the time to think beyond the stunted confines of the "lottery jackpot climbs" trope, applying a bit of journalistic skepticism to write a more accurate story, that their efforts would have been rewarded with an increase in readers/viewers/listeners/eyeballs/clicks/page-views.
It's only a guess, of course, because no one took the time to do this, so we can't know. Joel Achenbach is guessing the same thing:
My strong hunch is that most readers -- even those crazy Internet people! -- will gravitate to news sources that provide solid reporting and analysis. Get it right and be fair -- these principles are good ones regardless of the platform.
Hmm, some classist undertones here. It's not only proles who play the powerball. Even some of us multiple-graduate-degree types play. It's a couple days of amusement (what would I do with 100 million dollars?) for a dollar. Cheap entertainment.
Posted by: spinetingler | Aug 22, 2007 at 07:33 PM
It's a nice thought. But go to any major news source that has a "most viewed" or "most emailed" tracker, and it becomes apparent that it's only a nice thought, because it's not interesting analysis that people are looking at, it's "Woman jailed for testicle attack" or "Magazine retouches Sarozky photo" (currently the top emailed and viewed stories on the bbc website).
Newspapers are discovering what broadcast television already knew: there's more of a market for schlock than there is for anything intelligent, insightful, or educational.
Posted by: Jannia | Aug 22, 2007 at 07:34 PM
It's a couple of days amusement when you play once a month or so and fantasize about how you would spend all that money.
If you play the lottery weekly because you think that you will win big and it will solve all your problems, then it's a problem.
If you play the lottery every day because you believe that it is your only hope, then you're in serious trouble.
Unfortunately it's that third group that supplies all the prize money.
Posted by: cjmr's husband | Aug 22, 2007 at 07:57 PM
Sadly, that third group is also _right_ more often than we'd like to think...
Posted by: Andrew Cory | Aug 22, 2007 at 08:58 PM
Just to be pedantic: you can't play the lottery every day - it's usually drawn once or twice per week.
>Unfortunately it's that third group that supplies all the prize money.
Got a link to any research supporting that conclusion? I googled a litle but didn't find much of interest.
Posted by: spinetingler | Aug 23, 2007 at 12:15 AM
(what would I do with 100 million dollars?)
Pay 40 million in taxes :-)
Posted by: DummyPlug | Aug 23, 2007 at 12:35 AM
*you can't play the lottery every day - it's usually drawn once or twice per week.*
Sure you can. In fact, here in Ohio, you can play multiple times per day. We have both a noon and evening drawing for pick-3, pick-4 and Ten-Oh numbers 7 days a week, as well as Rolling Cash 5.
Even if you're only talking about multi-million dollar drawings, those still happen 5 times a week: Mega-Millions is drawn on Tuesdays and Fridays, and 'Classic Lotto' is on Mondays Wednesdays and Saturdays. That doesn't even get into the instant games, available in denominations from $1 to $20.
Posted by: Drocket | Aug 23, 2007 at 01:14 AM
I don't have anything useful to say, but I can't let this pass without saying how much I like the phrase "might as well be written in lead-based ink because everyone who reads them gets a little bit dumber", and pre-emptively confess that I intend to steal it and use it at my earliest opportunity.
Posted by: Todd Larason | Aug 23, 2007 at 01:20 AM
I second Todd's sentiment...
Posted by: Geds | Aug 23, 2007 at 08:17 AM
Paying a dollar to fantasise is wildly overpriced.
Posted by: wintermute | Aug 23, 2007 at 09:08 AM
Hmm, some classist undertones here. It's not only proles who play the powerball.
Yes, but the proles need to be protected by their Lord and Savior, Fred Clark, Compassionate Evangelical Journalist. He knows best. He knows all. He's an Evangelical Journalist. Praise Jeebus for sending Him to us.
almost none of which explores the difference between advertised and actual jackpots, the odds against winning (and the incalculable odds against being the sole winner), where this money comes from or where this money goes
Yea, it's immoral for them to lie to get you to voluntarily hand over $$. The will of the Baby Jeebus is that they lie to get your vote and then use the power they get that way to force your political enemies to hand over $$. Much more moral, and exactly what Jeebus died for. All praise Jeebus.
Posted by: Scott | Aug 23, 2007 at 09:13 AM
Posted by: wintermute | Aug 23, 2007 at 09:18 AM
off topic:
wintermute--Is there any flooding by you? I notice that Mansfield, Shelby, and Findlay were all underwater this week. (But, fortunately, not my Mom's house.)
Posted by: cjmr | Aug 23, 2007 at 09:25 AM
Wintermute, the impression that I've gotten is that Scott no longer makes much of an attempt to even make the goofy "the evil government taxes me at the POINT of a GUN for vile socialist causes like roads and fire departments" responses that he used to and has now sunk to just trying to be nasty to Fred.
Posted by: GailVortex | Aug 23, 2007 at 09:33 AM
cjmr: If anything we're suffering from a drought around here. Having found Mansfield and Findlay (but not Shelby) on a map, it turns out that they're quite a long way away from us (we're near Cincinnati, just south of Middletown). Occasionally we get thunderstorm warnings or flood warnings or some such for nearby counties, but I think we've seen rain maybe twice so far this month and the grass has turned yellow...
Posted by: wintermute | Aug 23, 2007 at 09:54 AM
Just to be pedantic: you can't play the lottery every day - it's usually drawn once or twice per week.
Here in Illinois, there are nightly Illinois Lottery (our esteemed state's Official Lottery) drawings for Little Lotto (7 days a week), and Pick 3/Pick 4 (twice a day Monday - Saturday, once on Sunday). This doesn't even count the Pick 'n Win and Instant Play games sold everywhere (usually gas stations where I just want to prepay for my gas and I get stuck behind someone who MUST buy five or more Lotto tickets!)
And to tie it back neatly to what Fred has written, where are the winning lottery numbers announced? WGN (Channel 9) has the Little Lotto and Lotto live drawings on their 9PM newscast.
And in other news, it appears ScottBot V is alive and fully functional.
Posted by: mmack | Aug 23, 2007 at 09:54 AM
BTW, reading Fred's post about Aschenbach's story, does anyone feel like Joel's story is SO 1999 with its reference to "eyeballs" and "stickiness"?
I mean, what's next? "It doesn't matter that we're not making a profit, market share is the key! Profit will come later. I mean, we're capitalized at 250 mil!"
Posted by: mmack | Aug 23, 2007 at 09:58 AM
But this time ScottBot is really amusing for some reason.
Posted by: Geds | Aug 23, 2007 at 09:59 AM
wintermute, I wasn't remembering properly where in OH you were, I guess--I thought you were north of Columbus. Shelby is small and near Mansfield. Until earlier this week that part of OH was having a drought. Now they have far too much of a good thing.
Somewhat on topic: The Mansfield News Journal has a really good website. Easy to navigate, no subscription required, lots of pictures, the 'previous issues' box has a red header and is easy to find...
Posted by: cjmr | Aug 23, 2007 at 10:02 AM
I do appreciate well researched newspaper articles. However, they also need to be short and well written for me to actually consider them good. - And frankly, I'd prefer reading a short entry on "Woman jailed for testicle attack" news to lengthy articles detailing the opinion of a not all that well-informed journalist over pages. Recently I read that NY-Times article on ' The Politics of God' , whose writer conveniently forgot the existence of the religious right in the US. It took me half an hour to go through it, just to find out, that the author was not as smart as he thought he was. With a "Woman jailed for testicle attack" I spend maybe five minutes reading, get to be amazed at the weirdness of human behavior, and won't be disappointed in the end at having been promised educational reading and received some journalist's personal opinion...
Posted by: Angelika | Aug 23, 2007 at 10:16 AM
You know that newspapers aren't actually owned by the government, right Scott? I'm not sure what target you're aiming for here, but I'm pretty sure you missed it...
Axiom: Markets always function perfectly, except when the government steps in and screws things up.
Axiom: In a perfectly-functioning market, if a newspaper didn't espouse naive-libertarian politics, it would go bankrupt due to lack of readership.
Observation: No successful newspapers espouse naive-libertarian politics.
Conclusion: The government secretly controls the newspapers.
Posted by: chaos_engineer | Aug 23, 2007 at 10:46 AM
"...the impression that I've gotten is that Scott no longer makes much of an attempt..."
Indeed. The role of lone voice requires that you be the most rational, dispassionate person in the bunch. Otherwise you end up just confirming everyone else's preconceptions. Scott no longer even tries to be rational, and instead has embraced the role of resident wingnut.
Posted by: Richard Hershberger | Aug 23, 2007 at 12:01 PM
Richard: The role of lone voice requires that you be the most rational, dispassionate person in the bunch. Otherwise you end up just confirming everyone else's preconceptions.
Actually, I find that attempting to be an amusing/interesting contributor and providing useful recipes works better than trying to be rational and dispassionate (rational, I can do: dispassionate, not so much).
Posted by: Jesurgislac | Aug 23, 2007 at 12:04 PM
dispassionate, not so much
Surely you jest! ("Stop calling me Shirley!")
Posted by: Jeff | Aug 23, 2007 at 12:07 PM
As a long time lurker, I gotta admit, Scott kind of worries me recently. I remember when he presented his points of view - which struck me as callous and raving, but by God, he knew how he got there! - with passion and sincerity, and when the vicious vitriol came out, you could kind of see how he got it, even if it was a very weird way to get there. Now, though... it's just "eeee! Fred Clark Evangelical Journalist! eeee! your yapping dog is so much rage! eeee eeee eeee!", and I'm worried. I'm worried for his safety, because I'm a socialist nanny-stater who wants to confiscate his money at the barrel of a gun.
But I like to believe the prevailing ScottBot theory, with minor alterations. I like to believe that Scott finally decided that the damn government wasn't getting any more of his money (at, we must stress, the barrel of a gun), and split his life savings into two blocks. The first, he invested in a robotic artificial intelligence, knowing that we'd miss him if he left suddenly and without occasionally railing at us for not accepting libertarianism (and to e-mail him Left Behind Fridays, a very sensible decision). The second? Well, Scott put that cash money in a suitcase, and Scott got on a plane, and Scott went to the tax haven of Aruba, where he lives in a seaside cottage sipping cocktails, watching sunsets, investing his money the way HE wants to, and occasionally railing bitterly at the colonial administration for their brutal socialist running of their European mainland at the barrel of a gun! - because what would Scott be, without his rantings?
I'd rather imagine that than the state of pure rage Scott's mind must be in at this point - there's a lot I don't like about him, but everyone deserves a tropical paradise over psychosis. "One Happy Island" indeed.
Yes, er, on topic... Appropriately enough, this - that is to say, what Jannia mentioned about the popular stories being "Celebrity Behaves Badly!", "Amusing Tale About The Genitals!", and "Cute Dog Is Cute! Could Terrorists And Badly Behaved Celebrities Be Plotting To Injure Its Genitals?" - has been a problem for me for some time. Because I have William de Worde's dedication to THE TRUTH, and yet I have to wonder sometimes if, if people would prefer to read the Ankh-Morpork Inquirer, how can one stop those from being the most highlighted stories? I certainly can't force them to stop quibbling over whether Kevin Rudd was rowdy at a strip club four years ago and instead to focus on his policies. (AT THE BARREL OF A GUN!!!, of course.)
Naturally, my automatic response is "we needs more of the educations!", but that's my automatic response to just about everything. In the meantime, I thank my lucky stars for the Australian Broadcasting Association. Its government ownership means that I don't have to worry about it selling out its principles to the highest bidder! Just about the Howard government stuffing its board with right-wing ideologues who will forbid the showing of anything particularly distasteful to them!
At this point, you may picture me chuckling bitterly, with a rictus-like grin on my face.
Still, we've still got The 7:30 Report. If I do grow up to be a journalist of any stripe, I want to be one like Kerry O'Brien - just charismatic enough without being showboaty, and more than willing to hold anyone's feet to the fire no matter who they are.
(sighs, scribbles "Mr. Patrick O'Brien" in the front of his notebook, terminates exceptionally lengthy comment before the last reader gets irritated and throws tomatoes)
Posted by: Patrick Phelan | Aug 23, 2007 at 12:30 PM
I remember, a couple of weeks ago, the top news story on the intertubes was "cute cat kills old people". If it was a celebrity nursing home, I suspect the Internet would have literally exploded.
Posted by: wintermute | Aug 23, 2007 at 12:38 PM
I've got a new rule. From here on out I will not be drinking anything when reading a Patrick Phelan post...
Posted by: Geds | Aug 23, 2007 at 12:48 PM
The second? Well, Scott put that cash money in a suitcase, and Scott got on a plane, and Scott went to the tax haven of Aruba, where he lives in a seaside cottage sipping cocktails, watching sunsets, investing his money the way HE wants to, and occasionally railing bitterly at the colonial administration for their brutal socialist running of their European mainland at the barrel of a gun! - because what would Scott be, without his rantings?
So, did anyone read that and think of Milton at the end of Office Space?
"Excuse me? Excuse me, senor? May I speak to you please? I asked for a mai tai, and they brought me a pina colada, and I said no salt, NO salt for the margarita, but it had salt on it, big grains of salt, floating in the glass... "
Thanks Patrick
Posted by: mmack | Aug 23, 2007 at 12:52 PM
I could put strychnine in the guacamole...
Posted by: wintermute | Aug 23, 2007 at 12:54 PM
...set the building on fire...
Posted by: Geds | Aug 23, 2007 at 01:08 PM
I read both types of news: I go to Fark for the stupid news (but there is a goodly amount of non-stupid news) and I read the newspaper (the print versions we get in our office, and occasionally online - WaPo and NYT) for "hard" news. I don't watch cable news of any kind, from what I've seen, it's a bunch of crap. Nancy Grace is not a journalist, she's a talk show host. Same thing for others of her ilk. If there's some breaking news (like the MN bridge collapse), I'll turn on the TV to see what's going on right that second, but for any kind of in-depth analysis, the TV people long ago gave up dispensing that, apparently.
The print people try to do in-depth, but unfortunately, most don't seem to do it very well, I guess because their editors don't care if someone actually knows what they're doing, they just want something they can put a snappy header over (like "The Politics of God," which kinda makes me NOT want to read it). It's too bad there doesn't seem to be a national print outlet that you can depend on consistently to just tell you what's going on without trying to skew it to a particular viewpoint.
Our local TV news shows (one in particular) are constantly trying to "drive" us to their website, usually by saying "to learn more, go to..." My reaction is "Why don't you just tell me right now, asshole, instead of expecting me to go to my computer to get what you're supposed to be telling me." I especially love it that they (local and national) waste my time with endless yapping about American Idol, Survivor, wedding crap (one reason I don't watch The Today Show), Paris Hilton and other things that are not news, and then try to get me to go to their websites to get the news that they don't have time to tell me when they're on the air (even though most are on the air for several hours at a time). It must be working on somebody, just not me. There are always gonna be dummies who don't want to know anything, who just want to be entertained, but who decided that those are the people that get to determine what's on every channel and in every newspaper and magazine?
I have learned from Fark that there are a tremendous number of teachers who cannot keep their hands off their students. Haven't seen that story on Today yet.
Posted by: LL | Aug 23, 2007 at 01:08 PM
I could put strychnine in the guacamole...
No, we have to save the strychnine for the pigeons. ("When they see us coming, the birdies all try and hide...")
Posted by: Jeff | Aug 23, 2007 at 01:15 PM
"...but they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide!"
You can use the strychnine elsewhere.
Posted by: cjmr's husband | Aug 23, 2007 at 01:18 PM
Arsenic is fine
But birdies like strychnine
Posted by: Jeff | Aug 23, 2007 at 01:21 PM
Check out today's Red and Rover. Fits right in with Achenbach's editorial...
(That's the link for Red and Rover overall--I couldn't figure out how to get specifically today's. The strip referred to is Aug. 24th's strip.>
Posted by: cjmr | Aug 23, 2007 at 01:38 PM
Oops. August 23. Today's only Thursday.
Posted by: cjmr | Aug 23, 2007 at 01:45 PM
Red and Rover, Aug 23
On a different site, that isn't blocked by my company!
Posted by: cjmr's husband | Aug 23, 2007 at 01:49 PM
The one from Aug 22nd (GoComic and WaPo) seems kind of fitting too.
Posted by: Jeff | Aug 23, 2007 at 02:58 PM
Lottery fantasies: I've been signed up with iwon.com for several years. No expectation of ever winning anything but it's free and as convenient a place to stash bookmarks as any.
And I have a single Premium Bond somewhere back in England since early childhood. Never won anything on that, either, but could theoretically cash it in any time and get the investment of GBP1 back.
Dreaming free.
Posted by: hagsrsus | Aug 23, 2007 at 04:04 PM
Here we go; what many "blogs" are doing because the "traditional" new orgs refuse to, because they're too busy regurgitating RNC or DNC talking points or telling us what Paris Hilton has been doing:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-rosen22aug22,0,4771551.story
Posted by: LL | Aug 23, 2007 at 04:38 PM
LL, true, some blogs do investigative journalism well. Having said that, few blogs (or comedy shows) have the budget to send a correspondant to Iraq, for example.
I think blogs typically work best as a newsfilter. Juan Cole, say, is not going to report to us live from Iraq. What he can do is winnow what he sees as the important news of the day from the chaff of regurgitated government statements, put the news in a larger context and comment on what he percieves to be the significance of it. Reading bloggers with expertise and good judgement is a good way to get informed precisely because such bloggers can emphasize and interpret what good reporting still goes on in print media.
Posted by: Ian | Aug 23, 2007 at 05:22 PM
Another one: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/08/22/MNGQRMP0F.DTL
Linked to from Fark. And Fark says (sarcastically): This should end well.
Posted by: LL | Aug 23, 2007 at 06:57 PM
Joel Achenbach wrote three books in the WHY THINGS ARE series; the second one had the best explanation of serial killers that I've ever read. He's one of the very few people who is willing to look past the mass-media myth of certain subjects and actually do some research.
They're out of date by now (written in the early to mid nineties) but still really entertaining. If you happen to be reading this after vanity-googling yourself, Hi Joel!
Posted by: Tim Lehnerer | Aug 23, 2007 at 10:45 PM
>You know, I also often daydream about what I would do if 100 million (or other ridiculously large sum) dropped in my lap unexpectedly. But, because I don't play the lottery, I get the same idle amusement that you do for free.
Paying a dollar to fantasise is wildly overpriced.
But as Steve Forbert said: "You cannot win, if you do not play."
Posted by: spinetingler | Aug 23, 2007 at 11:23 PM
Also, you're not paying the dollar in order to fantasize; you're paying the dollar to have a shot at making your dreams come true. It's like there's a wishing machine and everyday you can put a quarter in it and at the end of the week a genie has a 1 in 10,000,000 chance of popping out and granting your wish. You probably won't ever get your genie-wish but there's always a chance that you might.
Posted by: Drak Pope | Aug 23, 2007 at 11:53 PM
Nothing like fresh Chinese spam to wake you up in the morning....
Posted by: cjmr | Aug 24, 2007 at 06:51 AM
Of course I can win. I might turn out to have a millionaire uncle who leaves me money in his will. I might buy a painting at a jumble sale that turns out to be an unknown Picasso. The lottery is far from the only way to get a ridiculous amount of money.
To be honest, my odds of winning the lottery do not go down significantly when I do not play. Besides, the comment I was replying to made no mention of expecting any chances of winning, simply of the amusement you get from imagining what you'd do with the money. I can do that and spend the dollar on something that brings me direct enjoyment. I know I have no chance of actually winning more than I spend on the lottery, so I don't bother.
Posted by: wintermute | Aug 24, 2007 at 08:44 AM
JK Rowling bought a pen instead of a lottery ticket. I guess she's got no chance of ever getting the kind of sums you dream of...
Posted by: wintermute | Aug 24, 2007 at 09:11 AM
I wonder if the chances of getting a first novel published (by an actual publishing house, not self-publishing) are higher or lower than the chances of winning the lottery...
Posted by: cjmr | Aug 24, 2007 at 09:25 AM
I can do that and spend the dollar on something that brings me direct enjoyment. I know I have no chance of actually winning more than I spend on the lottery, so I don't bother.
Of course. I wasn't saying that spending money on the lottery was a great investment; I was just saying that the people who spend money on it are doing it not because they want to fantasize but because they think that their dreams might come true.
I wonder if the chances of getting a first novel published (by an actual publishing house, not self-publishing) are higher or lower than the chances of winning the lottery...
I guess it'd be higher, since only one person can win the same lottery at the same time but a publisher can see potential in a dozen new books at once. But I really wouldn't be sure; you'd have to compare the amount of published authors with the amount of lottery winners.
Posted by: Drak Pope | Aug 24, 2007 at 10:08 AM