Trumblog

My wife is always impressed with how much I read and keep on top of the news, which results in lot of stupid facts that I can pull up at a moments notice. She thinks that I read a lot, but the dirty truth is that I’m a skimmer. Books, those I really do read, but anyone who’s friends with me on Facebook knows from the infrequent updates to my Visual Bookshelf that the number of books I actually finish is pretty small until a holiday or vacation rolls along. But I keep up on the daily minutea through blogs, magazines and newspapers and those I skim like a madman.

Headlines are key when it comes to successful skimming.  The reason is pretty obvious; skimming is all about hierarchy and digging deeper when as you get the scent of more interesting information.  The headline is the top of the hierarchy. If that summary of the article seems interesting then I dig deeper.  If the first paragraph seems to lead to even more interesting content then I read the first sentences of following paragraphs and look for key words that jump out in paragraphs after that.  For a lot of articles this is enough for me.  If the scent of information is strong enough I really read the article from beginning to end.

There is an implicit trust that I have that a headline is an accurate summary of the article is leads.  When that doesn’t happen it is frustrating.  I think that I’ll be getting one bit of content and receive something else instead.  It slows me down and hurts my trust in the content provider.  Here are two examples.

Americans Say News Still Fit For Print, Distrust Blogs
This MediaPost article’s headline links American’s desire for a print news medium and distrust in blogs.  Now the fact that 80% of Americans subscribe to magazines and 83% consider daily newspapers to still be relevant is great news for the floundering newspaper industry.  It’s also interesting that 60% of respondents do not consider information found on blogs to be “credible.”  But there’s no connection between these two facts which would have been very interesting. The article doesn’t state how much more credible the respondents find print media if they do at all. And if print news is so necessary for credibility then why, as the article states, do “two-thirds of Americans now use Web sites “devoted to news” as a daily source, and nearly a third consider them to be their No. 1 source of news and information.” It turns out that the news really is that though readers don’t completely trust information on blogs it doesn’t mean that they then want or need a print newspaper in order to receive trusted news, which is sort of the opposite of the headline.

Obama drives US toward socialism, GOP says
Now it seems to me that whether bank and auto industry bailouts are steps toward socialism and then if Obama’s actions are any more socialist than Bush’s is a matter of opinion rather than fact .  Therefore the news that the Boston Globe should be reporting is that the GOP is making this charge against the president and the correct headline should be “GOP says: Obama drives US toward socialism.”

Come on folks, write a good, useful, accurate headline.  Not only does this help us to skim, but it leads to more accurate search results and trust from the reader and credibility. And, if you read that first article you’ll understand, are the two things that consumer’s want in their online media.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...