And so it goes

[SamScribble]

The is not (necessarily) about erotica. But you girls and boys are people of words, so perhaps you can help.

I am old enough to remember the late 1950s / early 1960s when a quality newspaper cost (I think) about a shilling.

My father ‘took’ (as they used to say) a national newspaper for the national and international news and a local newspaper for the local news. Both were informative, well-written, and (I assume) well-edited. Headlines told you what to expect, and lead paragraphs took you straight to the scene. The articles were, in a word, succinct.

How times have changed. These days, I get most of my national and international news from online feeds. Headlines often make little sense. And lead paragraphs almost never take you anywhere near the story. Their sole purpose seems to be to keep you reading as far as the next advertisement. For example:

Leafy suburb murder men charged

Roger Richardson and his wife, Marylin, have lived in the suburb of Ashbuxton since 1974.

When they first moved into the leafy haven, the only gunshot that was ever heard came from the starter’s pistol at the nearby athletics park.

The Richardson’s neighbours, Henry and Marina Stockton, have lived in Ashbuxton even longer. When they first moved in, the athletics park was still part of one of the many dairy farms that supplied the award-winning Fox Brothers Dairy Company with its raw materials.

‘In 40 years, the only cross word heard in Ashbuxton was when the council changed the rubbish collection from twice a week to once a week,’ Roger Richardson says.

But a little over a week ago, life for the residents of Ashbuxton changed. Changed dramatically.
​

As Kurt Vonnegut would have said: And so it goes. One hundred and twenty-eight words, and nary a mention of murder or persons charged therewith. Not even a hint of a connection to the headline. What is the reader supposed to do? Read on, hoping for enlightenment at some point in the future? Or simply say ‘Sod this for a game of soldiers’ and click on the next (vaguely-arresting) headline?

You are people of words, girls and boys. I await your advice.

 

[KeithD]

The Washington Post still delivers (mostly) journalistic style--most important elements leading off and then tailoring down from there.

My local paper not so much. I have a running battle with their sports coverage on how far into it I have to read before I know what local university, what sport, and the gender of the players the article is reporting.

 

[litfan10]

I have lost count how many times I've contacted local media sources complaining how if I had turned in what they readily publish in to my journalism classes my profs would have laughed and failed me - rightfully so.
I've given up. I am now a headline only reader.
The only news media I do use is the magazine The Week. Mostly politics but I rarely get annoyed at the quality.

 

[NotWise]

I've seen articles written like Sam described, but my local paper sticks to the traditional style, with the story capsulized in the first paragraph.

The paper is half the size it was a few years ago, and its price has tripled over the same time. I buy it now mostly for my wife, who reads the whole thing. Like litfan10, I mostly skim the headlines. That started when an Iranian friend of mine expressed the opinion that US press stories are mostly lies. The headlines are usually right, but everything that follows is wrong.

I don't know that he was entirely right, and he was mostly talking about international news, but it changed the way I looked at the news anyway.

 

[oggbashan]

Years ago I attended an evening class about 'popular culture'.

One week we were all asked to read a daily newspaper and watch the main TV news. We were asked to record how many stories were featured in each, and how they varied.

The TV news featured between 12 and 16 stories. Every story was in far less depth than the most popular paper. The quality papers e.g. The Times; The Guardian had between 80 and 90 stories and apart from a few smaller items that were different, the coverage was similar and fairly informative. The main difference was in editorial comment.

The more populist papers still had between 50 and 60 stories, all more detailed than the TV reports and although the facts were similar, the presentation and bias were markedly skewed. Although the headlines were more strident, they generally reflected the content of the item.

If I were to repeat the process today, the imbalance between TV and printed newspapers would be similar but the content of all articles would be much shorter and the bias more obvious including in the headlines. They all seem to have 'dumbed down' but are still much more in-depth than news stories on the internet unless you are looking at a print newpaper's website.

 

[TxRad]

In a small town the gossip grapevine is usually the main source of local news. You have to take each thing with a grain of salt and usually an aspirin or two.

We have a local paper but... It's good for cleaning fish.

On-line we have a guy who puts out the local news. He's a retired cop so he has good connections to the local sheriff and police departments. Traffic accidents, robberies, break ins, Fires, the normal things that happen. He also has a comment section for each story. That's usually the comic section.

He doesn't do the national news and he frowns on people bringing the national political scene onto his pages. A quick way to get deleted and in some cases, banned.

National news and international news comes from several feeds.

To tell the truth, I check headlines and sometimes skim the accompanying text but I don't pay much attention to how it is written. It is the internet after all. As long as it is not text speak, I'll give it a minimum pass.

 

[litfan10]

One of my last writing gigs was a column in a weekly free news magazine.

I was walking my neighborhood and watched a couple get home from work each in separate cars. They met at the mailbox.
Wife pulled out the mail including the mag my column was in.
Husband: Anything good in the mail?
Wife: nah, just garbage.
I silently kept walking.

 

[LoquiSordidaAdMe]

It's the new business model. Once it was the readers who paid the papers with their shillings or nickles. Now that every article is free online, the papers have to get you to scroll to the ad in order to make money. The objective is to keep your eyes on the page for as long as possible, not to build a loyal customer base who wants succinct information.

Personally, most of my news comes from Axios these days. Their bullet-point style isn't exactly the classic journalistic "inverted pyramid", but they still seem to value brevity and information first.

 

[jaF0]

As Kurt Vonnegut would have said: And so it goes.

I'm going to have to dispute that, especially since this is a thread about news and therefore journalism and journalists. Though I see reference to the phrase in Slaughterhouse Five, I associate it with journalist Linda Ellerbee who used it as her tagline when signing off at the end of newscasts. It's also the title of her book and became a sort of running joke in the TV series Murphy Brown where Ellerbee appeared in a cameo.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Ellerbee



And so it goes.

 

[SimonDoom]

The working model now is clickbait. Grab attention first, feed them advertising, then give them the news they're looking for. It's possible now, to a degree unthinkable before, because of technology, namely, the Internet, which has changed the way people absorb information. It's affected everything, including TV. It's nearly destroyed print journalism, and, especially, daily newspapers.

It's also a product of the Balkanization of the world. Different groups of people get their information from different sources, and only those sources, and those sources cater to their whims rather than playing it straight with the news.

What do you do if you want good journalism? I don't know. It's increasingly hard to come by.

 

[NotWise]

I'm going to have to dispute that, especially since this is a thread about news and therefore journalism and journalists. Though I see reference to the phrase in Slaughterhouse Five, I associate it with journalist Linda Ellerbee who used it as her tagline when signing off at the end of newscasts. It's also the title of her book and became a sort of running joke in the TV series Murphy Brown where Ellerbee appeared in a cameo.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Ellerbee



And so it goes.

Slaughterhouse Five was published in 1969. Ellerbee and Dobyn used the phrase on Weekend, but that was almost ten years later. (Dates and all from Wikipedia).

 

[SamScribble]

I'm going to have to dispute that, especially since this is a thread about news and therefore journalism and journalists. Though I see reference to the phrase in Slaughterhouse Five, I associate it with journalist Linda Ellerbee who used it as her tagline when signing off at the end of newscasts. It's also the title of her book and became a sort of running joke in the TV series Murphy Brown where Ellerbee appeared in a cameo.

And so it goes.

I was nodding in the direction of Slaughterhouse 5. But given that I was chatting with such a well-read bunch as the AH authors, I didn't think it was necessary to spell that out.

Incidentally, And So It Goes is also the title of a Kurt Vonnegut biography.

 

[WitchofWestmoreland]

Oh yes, the good old days when newspapers could always be trusted, journalists had integrity, and sensationalism was a thing virtually unknown.

Tabloids, yellow journalism? None of that was invented until the 21st century. William Randolph Hearst? Never heard of him.

 

[ElectricBlue]

What do you do if you want good journalism? I don't know. It's increasingly hard to come by.

I'm still old school - I buy a national paper every Saturday morning, throw away the Sports and Business sections (I'm not wealthy enough for the money stuff to matter and I don't give a toss about sport) and pretty much read or skim everything else. The commentariat in the paper is both left and right wing, so I generally agree with some more than others. I ignore TV news unless I'm curious about the weather, but sticking my head out the window tends to be more reliable. On-line, I go to the national broadcaster, so no ads.

"And so it goes", yep, Vonnegut.

Or as EB would say, carry on .

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm still old school - I buy a national paper every Saturday morning, throw away the Sports and Business sections (I'm not wealthy enough for the money stuff to matter and I don't give a toss about sport) and pretty much read or skim everything else. The commentariat in the paper is both left and right wing, so I generally agree with some more than others. I ignore TV news unless I'm curious about the weather, but sticking my head out the window tends to be more reliable. On-line, I go to the national broadcaster, so no ads.

"And so it goes", yep, Vonnegut.

Or as EB would say, carry on .

I don't read newspapers anymore, and I haven't in a while. My approach is to read from a variety of sources and try to maintain as much reasonable skepticism as I can. I seldom get news from TV, but I'm sure I will be glued to the TV screen tomorrow evening.

 

[NotWise]

I don't read newspapers anymore, and I haven't in a while. My approach is to read from a variety of sources and try to maintain as much reasonable skepticism as I can. I seldom get news from TV, but I'm sure I will be glued to the TV screen tomorrow evening.

Me too. My television is off when there's no football (American style) to watch, but I'll make an exception for tomorrow. The thing will be on late.

 

[mfan2112]

Me too. My television is off when there's no football (American style) to watch, but I'll make an exception for tomorrow. The thing will be on late.

I'll be the same, although I might go to the store as well and get a bottle of whiskey. It might make the commentary (from both sides) more entertaining.

 

[jaF0]

My TV has not been 'on' in over five years. Tomorrow will be no exception. I'll find out whatever there is to know the way I usually do ... scanning websites.

 

[KeithD]

I'm going to have to spend time tomorrow finding the driveway with a rake again, but, other than that, I'll have the TV on in the background. Maybe not watching it until after 8:30 or 9:00, as everything coming before that is sheer, ad nauseam speculation, but I may still be up at dawn on Wednesday (nothing new in that, though).

 

[NotWise]

I'll be the same, although I might go to the store as well and get a bottle of whiskey. It might make the commentary (from both sides) more entertaining.

For the last Presidential election, I started streaming the news from work a little after noon -- mid-afternoon eastern time. I might do that again.

I think there's only one state-level question of any importance that isn't already decided, so I'll watch that. I have a friend running for re-election, and I'll watch that. A lot of my state and county-level elections weren't really contested, so there's not much to watch.

To Ogg's point about the difference between television news and print news, I don't think you can make a simple comparison. Printed news comes out at spaced intervals. Television news comes out, and the content changes, more frequently. Television is great for weather and breaking news. Print is great for opinion and detail -- and comics. I love the comics.

I do think that local journalism is dying. National journalism has a broader economic base to draw from. The problem is that local journalism has always provided oversight for local-level and intermediate-level government. If you don't have local journalism, then who's keeping those folks on their toes? Our local television media likes to think they do that, but I'm not convinced.

 

[KeithD]

It's been a long slide for media presentation. I had fifteen years of a career, ending over twenty years ago, in analyzing open-source media reporting for understanding of what was really going on for government policymakers. There's no such thing as completely unbiased media reporting. You have to put various angles together and, for leaders statements, you need to consider what they aren't saying as much as what they are.

 

[ruddygore]

A couple of things have changed. Reporting used to be considered somewhat of a craft or trade, similar to plumbing or electrician. Now it seems to be considered a profession. I mean, why would you need an advanced degree to write a story about the local city council meeting?

Reporting, ideally, used to be concerned with telling you what happened. Now it seems to be more how you should feel about it.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Read an article some years ago about somebody who just counted words on major US network flagship evening news programmes vs The New York Times. Apparently, the major TV news shows used the about same number of words as one three-quarters of one page from the Grey Lady. Even given the photos and maps and such, the amount of info actually presented is tiny compared to what a normal newspaper used to offer.

 

[SisterJezabel]

I use a friend's login, that they received for free from their university, to read our local paper. I refuse to give Murdoch any more money! It's fascinating- we had a state election last weekend. For months and months the papers, both state and local, have been slamming the government for poor Covid management and refusing to open our state borders to areas that still can't show they have Covid under control. The 'progressive' government was returned with an increased majority and hefty swing towards it. The 'conservative' opposition lost ground and only managed to help influence one seat where an ultra-left wing candidate was successful over the incumbent due to conservative preferences. One might think the Murdochracy might want to think they reflect the views of local people, but no, ow they feel they need to hold the government to account and are telling voters they were wrong basically! No wonder readership is down!

 

[jehoram]

The two newspapers I regularly read (The Sacramento Bee and the San Franciso Chronicle) are still competently written, at least in the news sections: Headline, a first paragraph giving the gist of the story, and subsequent paragraphs providing detail. I was taught that the ideal newspaper story would be one where, if you needed to shorten it, just delete the last paragraphs one by one until you could fit the story in and still have it make sense.

Now, I get my headlines on-line, but the real reportage in depth comes from journals like Mother Jones or the New Yorker. If they need twelve pages to get the whole story told, then twelve pages is what the story will get.

But I agree that news is mostly click-bait oriented. There was a great story about that recently ... in the New Yorker.