this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024
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[–] ramirezmike@programming.dev 49 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I studied news journalism in college and they kinda hammered in that in news journalism it's more important to communicate information consistently and to target a wide audience than it is to make "good writing."

There are style guides you have to follow and words like "slammed" end up getting used a lot despite not quite being accurate because they're words that are used a lot.

The other thing is that usually the person writing the headlines isn't the journalist.. and sometimes they do a lot of versions of the same headline and when people click more because of the word slammed it ends up sticking.

[–] theluddite@lemmy.ml 26 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Your comment perfectly encapsulates one of the central contradictions in modern journalism. You explain the style guide, and the need to communicate information in a consistent way, but then explain that the style guide is itself guided by business interests, not by some search for truth, clarity, or meaning.

I've been a long time reader of FAIR.org and i highly recommend them to anyone in this thread who can tell that something is up with journalism but has never done a dive into what exactly it is. Modern journalism has a very clear ideology (in the sorta zizek sense, not claiming that the journalists do it nefariously). Once you learn to see it, it's everywhere

[–] ramirezmike@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago

yeah, unfortunately they need to make money to exist. And that creates all sorts of incentives that aren't great. I still like journalism and think it's an important part of a working society, but I decided pretty quickly after studying it that I didn't want to be part of it

[–] Chakravanti@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago

I'll take that just like Lee Camp being a journalist.

[–] WallEx@feddit.de 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

So they use the word often, because its often used by them? Pretty ass backwards, but also makes sense for sensationalist "journalism"

[–] ramirezmike@programming.dev 1 points 7 months ago

I don't see how it's backwards, the word drives clicks and is commonly used. It's unfortunate but most journalism has to be profit-motivated to survive these days.

[–] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

How hard is it to ban the word slammed in your style guide? Excuses are the nails to build a house of failure.

[–] ramirezmike@programming.dev 1 points 7 months ago

I kinda alluded to it but they probably don't want to ban the word because it's commonly used and it drives clicks.