News Headlines

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Rose65

Well-known Member
Location
United Kingdom
I really often wonder how those are selected. I refer to the main BBC app which is all I glance at.
So all I want is a summary of important news. Yet I am often puzzled at the randomness and irrelevance.
 

Rose65 said:
Yet I am often amazed at the randomness and irrelevance
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Headlines stories are often irrelevant, but nothing random about it. They are chosen to maximize hits, the headlines are often not even written by the story's author but by an editor trying to come up with the flashiest lines... Does make it frustrating for many of us.
 
Most newspapers today are pretty pitiful, but the local rag in the town my mother lived in was sublimely pitiful.

The first three pages had blaring headlines like MAN CAUGHT DUMPING CONCRETE ON COUNTY LAND! or HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM FINALLY WINS GAME! or TEENAGERS CAUGHT SHOPLIFTING TWO COKES AND A BAG OF FRITOS AT PIGGLY-WIGGLY!

Move to the 4th page and you'd find stuff like "Angry Mob Storms Senate, Tars-and-Feathers several Senators Today" or "Gigantic Volcano Erupts at Yellowstone, All Towns in 100-Mile Radius Destroyed" or "California Splits off Continent, Drifts Out to Sea". Y'know, the insignificant stuff.....
 

I haven't bought a paper in years. I just quickly glance at the main BBC app and TV news. Even that is padded out with nonsense that has no meaning for most of us.

By the way, how tragic about the Titanic sub that's missing. What IS the great fascination with a wreck from 1912anyway? Enough lives have surely already been lost and now very likely these people have died a most dreadful death. All the cost and energy spent on something that is long gone. This cannot end well.
 
It's not really news they are trying to tell, it's a "platform" for advertising. News doesn't make money-advertising does. So, there are two kinds of stories- "Isn't that too bad/horrible" and "isn't that cute". Both are to elicit emotions to keep reading, and to be exposed to more ads. Plus "news" doesn't have to be true, or factual, you can't have news without some member of the Royal Brit. family being "shocked" or "worried" by some trauma, as told by nameless "palace insiders". Then, throw in political biases.
 
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