Community Chat

[beach-mom]

I never actually taught journalism, but I have taught enough English classes to know how to write a headline to grab a reader's attention. I also wrote articles for papers in high school and college.

So with the "crop" of younger writers - and I use those words loosely-  today, I have been wondering about some headlines I see. Here's one I saw. I'm going to give you the headline and put the rest of my thoughts in a spoiler format. Let me know what you think!

Headline:  Rob Gronkowski Watches as his Four Brothers Get  Beat Up

Spoiler

I was expecting to see an article about his brothers being injured and how he escaped the beating. Instead they were "beat up " by boxer Logan Paul, who will fight Floyd Meriweather this summer. He faced each of Rob's brothers in one of four rounds. When he saw things weren't going well for his brothers Rob stepped in and stopped the match.


So at first I thought, "What a misleading headline!" Then I thought that it DID grab my attention and make me read the article. Is this good journalism or is it what my millennials disdainfully call "click bait"? 

[Desertdi]

"News Releases" (a form of advertising) put out by a public relations firm are meant to "grab attention".       

[happycat]

I think it’s clickbait. And yahoo is full of it. I don’t think we can believe the majority of what we read or hear. There is a lot of lying that goes on, and we don’t have a lot of real journalists anymore.

[Foxxee]

Misleading headlines are so common I always think there is more to this story.  I'm also skeptical about the content.  The lies, what's twisted, omitted, and true.

Your example headline is saying something that's not true to get our attention. It's tricking the reader.  It's deceptive, unethical.  I have no respect for journalists, newspapers, websites, that do that.  

[Flatbush]

My bone of contention is that it is not truthful, but is misleading. All too common now days.

[SloopJohnB]

@beach-mom   Reminds me of when watching a really old movie, probably in black and white, and you see a young boy with his cap on, twisted to one side of his head, holding a copy of the newspaper.  He is walking down a busy street with the front page headline in full view and he is yelling, " Extra, Extra, read all about it.". That is my visual of it.

But like as already mentioned, now most things are click bait.  For the most part, getting the latest and greatest news instantly and eletronically.  

I personally don't like misleading headlines.  I am one of the few stragglers on my street that still get a daily newspaper delivered.  And many moons ago I, too, wrote for a small newspaper.  📰🗞

[Lindsays Grandma]

That's exactly what they are, misleading, and when published that is exactly what they were meant to be to get our attention.  Works every single time. 

[Imaoldhippie]

@beach-mom ............its not just young people today. 

Headline attention grabbing has been going on since newspapers began.  Now its on TV, radio and all forms of media.

[godi]

Great topic @beach-mom  I agree with the posters here that it was definitely click bait. Sensationalism at its best in that story. 

[Nancy Drew]

24 hours news channels, endless Facebook, Instagram pages, a million YouTube channels and a plethora of streaming........all wanting our attention. So if Cat attacks Lady Gaga gets peoples attention when really a cat batted at her toe they are willing to dumb us all down for their income. I don't fall for it. If it is something that is breaking news we get bombarded with it. Learned the hard way.