While I was working at The Dominion Post, there was a Post-It note, stuck to one of the managers’ monitors, that was used to guide the decision-making process about what went on the front page.
An artist's impression Photo: Unknown
Through history, the primary role of journalism has been rooted in that “ought”. For all that’s been said about the tabloidisation of news, there’s still an expectation – of print media in particular – that it should function in the public interest.
Readers assess stories by what is and isn’t newsworthy, and read importance or relevance into the front page. When these expectations aren’t met, there tends to be a backlash of, almost uniformly, “This isn’t news” or “Slow news day?” (which, to tell the truth, it often is).
At the Dom, I was one of two reporters for the daily “about town” page, and, even within that cotton-soft context, readers were quick to question the newsworthiness of the topics we covered.
“It’s just a bit of fun,” I’d moan to my colleague in response to criticisms – one presumes, from cat people – of our “Central Business Dogs” map of Wellington’s best shop dogs (which I will defend until end days*).
It was irritating at the time, of course, to have our bubble so uncharitably burst by what I thought of as our bitter, joyless readers, but looking back, I’m glad we were held to such standards. Newspaper sales and the demands of the daily news cycle aside, such feedback served to remind me of what the role of the reporter was.
And it was nice to know that people cared. Looking at the list of most-viewed stories of any mainstream media’s online presence, it’s easy to assume that the public cares more about Kim Kardashian than it does child poverty, or who’s in charge of this country.
But as news media becomes more at home online, it becomes less successful at serving the public interest.
In theory, a newspaper ranks stories in order of importance from most to least, and you at least have to thumb past the stories that, though worthy, don’t interest you.
Aside from homepage placement, and categorising stories under subheadings like “Entertainment” (both measures that presuppose, probably incorrectly, that all content is accessed from the homepage), “what readers ought to know” and “what readers want to know” are given equal billing online.
Of the vast, sprawling mass of information we have available to us, it’s possible – if not easier – to consume only that which interests you or reaffirms your view of the world, like jumping from stone to stone across a stream that’s moving too fast for you to wade in.
The issue is compounded by the so-called “eyeball economy”, where the monetary value of content is determined by the number of people it reaches and traffic it gets. In a world where people are “put off by” topics like politics and finance, celebrity and ‘soft’ news appeal to a broader audience and boost page views. (That links to an Onion story, but the sentiment rings true.)
It’s why Miley Cyrus came in like a wrecking ball through the historic foundations of the news media. It’s why Sir Bob Jones has a national platform in which to publish his self-reflective performance art.
Posts like Jones’ “women are bad drivers and are costing us money” often prompt cries of “don’t feed the troll”, borne out of the optimistic understanding that if we ignore it, it will go away, like the bogeyman or the poverty gap.
But, to be effective, such a strategy would have to be enacted on far larger a scale than could ever be corralled with a hashtag. After all, Stuff.co.nz attracts 1.4 million unique viewers each month (and 599,000 to its Entertainment section, and 510,000 to Life & Style).
More importantly, take away the clickbait, and you take away a key source of revenue for news media attempting to juggle crowd-pleasing celebrity gossip with compelling, significant journalism, while receiving little recompense for either.
There’s no easy solution, but I’m hopeful one will become apparent as we become more at ease with exchanging money for quality online services**.
Where once I was loath to pay for “the internet” (because it’s free, right?), I now happily shell out $12.99 a month for Spotify Premium and – less happily, more often than I care to admit – $1.30 for five extra moves on Candy Crush. I could be persuaded to part with a monthly sum for compelling, thoughtful news coverage sans the side of clickbait.
Expect a lot more on clickbait and the “eyeball economy” this week on The Wireless, while we explore “Free: Data”. Plus, we’ll have details on the media’s right to publish the content you post on social media; an article on how the internet has changed how we consume music; and reports by Megan and me from Kiwicon, New Zealand’s annual hacker conference, at which we were comically out of our depth.
* This, however, I have no good explanation for
** Editor's note: The Wireless is committed to remaining a free and non-commercial source of information.
