That newspapers are “an industry in peril” is not exactly news. But a somewhat morbid report of their woes in the NYT reminds anyone who thought that the likes of Super Tuesday and Beijing 2008 would provide a buffer, that things are not looking good. Gordon Macmillan concludes that whilst TV and the web are enjoying this editorial surge, next year ‘is going to be a bloodbath’.
This is reminiscent of The Guardian’s report into the impact of SEO on the much loved British tabloid headline, which fairly suggested that as much as we might love puns, they don’t work for search. The likes of “No Knobby Bobbie Given A Girl’s Jobby” – check out Steve Hill for the genius explanantion – may be over, but the aim according to Keith Howitt of the Independent on Sunday is simply “to attract and entertain the reader while remaining true to the facts”.
This doesn’t sound that disimilar to the aims of everyone else on the web, a quick look at ProBlogger illustrates the time and thought spent on blog titles. And rightly so, with the scanning of your average reader in the morning surely being even more ruthless than a skim of the papers with all thier images and boxed out quotes? It’s another example of blogging raising the game, with snappy titles setting the pace in search – not to mention keeping the puns alive and well. Examples from the last week With or Without Yahoo! and Brave Britney Spears Nearly Forgotten Amid Your Stupid Election Or Whatever made us laugh, jumped out from cluttered readers and pulled in key hot search terms of the day.
As more and more papers move their focus online, we’re looking forward to the increasing impact of newspaper journalists skills at grabbing our online attention.
Disagree. The smart publishers are generating two versions of a story, one for online, and one for print. We’re doing the same for clients with press materials – a version for the web and a version to pitch.
Hey Stephen
You’re definitely right, every story needs thorough tailoring whether by smart publishers to audience and medium – or smart PRs to journalists or bloggers. I was just struck by how hard a blog headline has to work to catch my eye amongst the clutter, and how increasingly it’s the funny clever ones reminiscent of a good tabloid headline that grab my attention!
[...] After successfully killing the headline last week (kinda), Lewis suggested I try killing something each week – I think he just wants me to post about “what i killed today” and let’s not mention 90 Day Jane… [...]
[...] on journalism continues to attract my interest – that of the influence of SEO on editorial. I wrote on Shiny Red about it at the beginning of the year and the debate’s continued as newspapers [...]