When did it become acceptable to pile half-stories on a site?
In a world of instant, get-it-now news, we've found out just how much things get recycled. There's such thing as slow news days, and we all endure them from time to time. But recently, I've seen a trend, specifically in sites and TV networks offering "round-the-clock" news coverage: The repeating, half-stories.
CNN is especially horrible at this; the CNN channel will sit and wait for that one story, and in between, they'll announce any minor news - no matter how minor the story, you can bet they'll talk about it. And you can bet that 95% of the time, they won't tell you anything that the title can't.
But view the homepage
here. Of those 'top stories,' which sounds the most intriguing? Sure, you can argue one way or the other but all too often, you can read the title of those headlines and be just as informed about the story as they are.
We've found ourselves in an age where almost ANYTHING counts as news. The worst part about this is that the majority of the news is dominated by things in Iraq. And of course, news about Iraq is the worst culprit of the half-story. "October a deadly month for Iraq." Okay, fair game. "Bomb kills 161, the highest death count thus far." Okay, fine, but it's not that surprising given the first story. "Bomb explodes during wedding, people die." Okay, it's bad, but still.. any other news? "Attack on Baghdad," okay, I heard about this... "Troops serving abroad have thanksgiving," well yeah, why wouldn't they?
In the course of less than a minute, I've just picked up 4 stories that are interrelated, and each one ends up referencing the others in some way. And the absolute worst is stories that have only one or two paragraphs about the headline and then start going into a stats reel-off of what's happened in the past. How is THAT news? Oh wait, it's because the headline is too short by itself, and not worthy of news... so let's add on things we've said before?
I'm all for the media informing me, but there's a limit on what's news and what's not. And when they're resorting to recycling stories within stories, then they shouldn't be reporting on it at all. At least not as a "breaking news" story.
BREAKING NEWS: WE POSTED ANOTHER STORY!. Honestly, it's just a shade away from that. It just seems that the 24-hour news centres have gone away from quality in favour of quantity. Before they finish typing up the article they're sending, they're already writing up the next one. Slow down... we know the world's a mess, we know Iraq's a mess... now, tell me HOW, not just why and what.
This can be stemmed from reporters not having the guts to give out their own opinion. I like facts as much as the next person, but what are facts if they're not coupled with opinions? It's like reporters don't want to tell people how they feel about all the things happening in the world... it's like they're afraid people would stop reading them or they would get fired for having an opinion (which is a legitimate reason, but the blame is then placed on censorship and the company). We're not robots, and some of us aren't as stupid as these news companies think we are.
The same story isn't breaking news; not having opinions or insight in the articles makes them bland, boring, and less appealing to read.
