7 ms·

> It's British, which might explain some of the language and humour It's better explained by simply describing the site as a tabloid. Tabloids aside, British n

by laumars 11y ago

> It's British, which might explain some of the language and humour It's better explained by simply describing the site as a tabloid. Tabloids aside, British news reporting isn't typically that informal. > I keep forgetting about 'El Reg', but whenever I return there, I enjoy my visit. It has a strong, unique tone which I find a breath of fresh air amongst all the dull, neutral news reporting out there. Personally I find the site appalling. It's up there with the The Daily Mail for rewriting other people's articles. Granted this is basically how 99% of reporting happens these days, but these kinds of tabloids often miss the entire crux of the original piece they're plagiarizing due to their editorialisation. For example, their articles on OpenSSL parallels the Daily Mail's absurd anti-immigration propaganda. And often, again like the Daily Mail, El Reg will completely miss-report a story just for the sake of having a clickbait headline. Frankly, I'd rather have dull neutral news reporting over biased misinformation.

collyw 11y ago
Its a parody of the British tabloids and their ridiculous headlines. As such I find it's headlines hilarious sometimes.
- laumars 11y ago
  I'm not convinced it's a parody. That would suggest their writing style is done as a joke; referencing British tabloids while distancing themselves as a comedy version. More likely El Reg's informal writing style is a deliberate and serious decision driven by the requirement to gain more readers (read: eyeballs on their ads). ie the same reasons any tabloid is written they way they are.
  - teh_klev 11y ago
    El Reg since day one has always had a somewhat less than deferential style of writing. The original founder, Mike Magee[0], intended the reporting style to be tabloid-like right from the get-go. You either love or hate The Register, personally I've enjoyed reading it since 1997 and get a good chuckle each morning from some of their amusing bylines. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Magee_(journalist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Magee_(journalist)
    - user_0001 11y ago
      >and get a good chuckle each morning from some of their amusing bylines. +1 Their headlines are borderline genius on occasion
  - collyw 11y ago
    Look at it. Big red banner at the top - just like the British tabloids. Constant twisting of headlines to add as much innuendo as possible. I guess if you are not from the UK it might not be so bleeding obvious, but for us it is. Would I be correct in guessing that you are not?
    - digi_owl 11y ago
      There is also the slogan, "biting the hand that feeds IT". Never mind the ongoing BOFH column.
    - langarto 11y ago
      I am not from the UK and in fact I am not even a native English speaker and yet I had always assumed that the tone of El Reg was a parody. I think it is quite obvious.
      - laumars 11y ago
        The tone of El Reg is very similar to many other tabloids though. Most don't take themselves seriously. I gave a few examples of The Sunday Sport in another post, but here's one from a Scottish tabloid, reporting about when someone caught a failed suicide bomber trying to attack an airport: https://thehosh.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/kickedterrorist.jpg https://thehosh.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/kickedterrorist.... And here's one from The Sun http://www.lazerhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/The-Sun-Stupid-Headlines-UFO-hits-turbine.png http://www.lazerhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/The-Sun... I don't tend to read many tabloids, but the Red Tops (predictably named because of their design) I've read on occasions do follow the same tongue-in-cheek writing style. I think it's fair to say they can't all be parodies as you then have to question when a parody is so commonplace that it's no longer a parody; that it instead just becomes that normal thing.
        teh_klev 11y ago
        I think some folks are confusing "parody" and "tabloid style". The definition of parody is: "a work created to imitate, make fun of, or comment on an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of satiric or ironic imitation." [0] Websites that would fall into the "parody" category would be The Onion, The Daily Mash, Landover Baptist Church, The Poke etc. Another word to describe these types of sites would be satire. The Register is not really a "parody" website because it's reporting on actual things that have happened (direct from source or through recycling), but the reporting and writing style is in the same vein or riffs off of the "tabloid journalism" style. Tabloid journalism can be characterised as sensationalist, ridiculing and hyperbolic, with headlines designed to appeal to your more base instincts. What The Register does, or attempts to do is inject humour into its reporting by using the tabloid style, it tries not to take itself too seriously. There is as you rightly point out a lot of "tongue in cheek" phrasing in many articles. For example, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I enjoy their headlines and bylines, e.g.: "Criminal records checks 'unlawful' and 'arbitrary' rules High Court - Disclosing minor silliness no longer required, say judges" [1] "Rust 1.6 released, complete with a stabilised libcore - A world without buffer overflows is what our children shall inherit" [2] "Boeing just about gives up on the 747 - Even the cargo market's dried up for the Jumbo Jet. Next stop, elephant's graveyard?" [3] Anyway, I wouldn't get too bogged down, in over analysing El Reg, you either get their sense of humour or you don't. There are also an offshoot by ex-Register founder Mike Magee which reports in a similar style: http://www.theinquirer.net/ http://www.theinquirer.net/ [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parody https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parody [1]: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/22/criminal_record_checks_unlawful/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/22/criminal_record_chec... [2]: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/22/rust_16/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/22/rust_16/ [3]: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/22/boeing_747_production_reduction/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/22/boeing_747_productio...
roddux 11y ago
Which articles are you referring to in particular? I've not noticed glaring inaccuracies in any of the stories on El Reg.
- laumars 11y ago
  Not inaccurate specifically, but sometimes heavily steeped in editorial bias and dramatisations that an uninformed reader would easily draw inaccurate conclusions from the piece. A lot of news networks operate this way. Since they all often publish the same stories from the same sources, they end up competing with each other to publish the most dramatised interpretation of the facts in an effort to win rating. The Register just stands out as being one of the worst offenders (or most successful - depending on your view point).
pjc50 11y ago
Andrew Orlowski's pro-copyright cheerleading was what turned me off it. He can be very nasty about people he disagrees with.
- teh_klev 11y ago
  Yeah, I'm not a huge fan either and find him somewhat objectionable. Orlowski's the only one that used to turn off commenting on his articles which is half the fun of the reg, though he seems to do this less now. But every publication, in print or online, is going to have a writer who you just never get on with intellectually. There's plenty of other good contributors such as Duncan Campbell [0] and Alastair Daabs [1] that more than make up for the Orlowski deficit. [0]: http://www.theregister.co.uk/Author/3066 http://www.theregister.co.uk/Author/3066 [1]: http://www.theregister.co.uk/Author/2802 http://www.theregister.co.uk/Author/2802
- jahnu 11y ago
  The stance is one that reasonable people can disagree on but he resorts to childish insults. Also he's a climate science denier which is just so odd in the IT world since for me I always associate IT as close to science in that you must deal with reality even if you don't like it.

by laumars 11y ago

collyw 11y ago

Its a parody of the British tabloids and their ridiculous headlines. As such I find it's headlines hilarious sometimes.

laumars 11y ago
I'm not convinced it's a parody. That would suggest their writing style is done as a joke; referencing British tabloids while distancing themselves as a comedy version. More likely El Reg's informal writing style is a deliberate and serious decision driven by the requirement to gain more readers (read: eyeballs on their ads). ie the same reasons any tabloid is written they way they are.
- teh_klev 11y ago
  El Reg since day one has always had a somewhat less than deferential style of writing. The original founder, Mike Magee[0], intended the reporting style to be tabloid-like right from the get-go. You either love or hate The Register, personally I've enjoyed reading it since 1997 and get a good chuckle each morning from some of their amusing bylines. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Magee_(journalist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Magee_(journalist)
  - user_0001 11y ago
    >and get a good chuckle each morning from some of their amusing bylines. +1 Their headlines are borderline genius on occasion
- collyw 11y ago
  Look at it. Big red banner at the top - just like the British tabloids. Constant twisting of headlines to add as much innuendo as possible. I guess if you are not from the UK it might not be so bleeding obvious, but for us it is. Would I be correct in guessing that you are not?
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    There is also the slogan, "biting the hand that feeds IT". Never mind the ongoing BOFH column.
  - langarto 11y ago
    I am not from the UK and in fact I am not even a native English speaker and yet I had always assumed that the tone of El Reg was a parody. I think it is quite obvious.
    - laumars 11y ago
      The tone of El Reg is very similar to many other tabloids though. Most don't take themselves seriously. I gave a few examples of The Sunday Sport in another post, but here's one from a Scottish tabloid, reporting about when someone caught a failed suicide bomber trying to attack an airport: https://thehosh.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/kickedterrorist.jpg https://thehosh.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/kickedterrorist.... And here's one from The Sun http://www.lazerhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/The-Sun-Stupid-Headlines-UFO-hits-turbine.png http://www.lazerhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/The-Sun... I don't tend to read many tabloids, but the Red Tops (predictably named because of their design) I've read on occasions do follow the same tongue-in-cheek writing style. I think it's fair to say they can't all be parodies as you then have to question when a parody is so commonplace that it's no longer a parody; that it instead just becomes that normal thing.
      - teh_klev 11y ago
        I think some folks are confusing "parody" and "tabloid style". The definition of parody is: "a work created to imitate, make fun of, or comment on an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of satiric or ironic imitation." [0] Websites that would fall into the "parody" category would be The Onion, The Daily Mash, Landover Baptist Church, The Poke etc. Another word to describe these types of sites would be satire. The Register is not really a "parody" website because it's reporting on actual things that have happened (direct from source or through recycling), but the reporting and writing style is in the same vein or riffs off of the "tabloid journalism" style. Tabloid journalism can be characterised as sensationalist, ridiculing and hyperbolic, with headlines designed to appeal to your more base instincts. What The Register does, or attempts to do is inject humour into its reporting by using the tabloid style, it tries not to take itself too seriously. There is as you rightly point out a lot of "tongue in cheek" phrasing in many articles. For example, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I enjoy their headlines and bylines, e.g.: "Criminal records checks 'unlawful' and 'arbitrary' rules High Court - Disclosing minor silliness no longer required, say judges" [1] "Rust 1.6 released, complete with a stabilised libcore - A world without buffer overflows is what our children shall inherit" [2] "Boeing just about gives up on the 747 - Even the cargo market's dried up for the Jumbo Jet. Next stop, elephant's graveyard?" [3] Anyway, I wouldn't get too bogged down, in over analysing El Reg, you either get their sense of humour or you don't. There are also an offshoot by ex-Register founder Mike Magee which reports in a similar style: http://www.theinquirer.net/ http://www.theinquirer.net/ [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parody https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parody [1]: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/22/criminal_record_checks_unlawful/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/22/criminal_record_chec... [2]: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/22/rust_16/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/22/rust_16/ [3]: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/22/boeing_747_production_reduction/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/22/boeing_747_productio...

roddux 11y ago

Which articles are you referring to in particular? I've not noticed glaring inaccuracies in any of the stories on El Reg.

laumars 11y ago
Not inaccurate specifically, but sometimes heavily steeped in editorial bias and dramatisations that an uninformed reader would easily draw inaccurate conclusions from the piece. A lot of news networks operate this way. Since they all often publish the same stories from the same sources, they end up competing with each other to publish the most dramatised interpretation of the facts in an effort to win rating. The Register just stands out as being one of the worst offenders (or most successful - depending on your view point).

pjc50 11y ago

Andrew Orlowski's pro-copyright cheerleading was what turned me off it. He can be very nasty about people he disagrees with.

teh_klev 11y ago
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan either and find him somewhat objectionable. Orlowski's the only one that used to turn off commenting on his articles which is half the fun of the reg, though he seems to do this less now. But every publication, in print or online, is going to have a writer who you just never get on with intellectually. There's plenty of other good contributors such as Duncan Campbell [0] and Alastair Daabs [1] that more than make up for the Orlowski deficit. [0]: http://www.theregister.co.uk/Author/3066 http://www.theregister.co.uk/Author/3066 [1]: http://www.theregister.co.uk/Author/2802 http://www.theregister.co.uk/Author/2802
jahnu 11y ago
The stance is one that reasonable people can disagree on but he resorts to childish insults. Also he's a climate science denier which is just so odd in the IT world since for me I always associate IT as close to science in that you must deal with reality even if you don't like it.