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News stories are different from editorial, opinion, informational, entertainment, etc. articles. For example, the top article on Google News for me right now is

by chaz 10y ago

News stories are different from editorial, opinion, informational, entertainment, etc. articles. For example, the top article on Google News for me right now is a NYT editorial: "The Jobs Report Is Not Quite as Terrible as It Looks." If I saw that on old-fashioned newsprint while skimming down the page, I would definitely stop and read it. I also clicked the article to read the story on GN. Is it clickbait? How would you retitle this article? http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/04/upshot/the-jobs-report-is-not-quite-as-terrible-as-it-looks.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/04/upshot/the-jobs-report-is-...

combatentropy 10y ago
> How would you retitle this article? I don't think the headline is clickbait: "The Jobs Report Is Not Quite as Terrible as It Looks." It's vague, yes, but it would be hard to cram much more into the headline. If you read the article, the reasons he gives for "why the jobs report is not quite as terrible as it looks" is a hodgepodge of unrelated things: (a) the report's margin of error is 100,000; (b) a three-month average is better; (c) a wave of people are retiring; and (d) "as the economy approaches full employment, jobs growth must slow." It's hard to summarize it better than: "The Jobs Report Is Not Quite as Terrible as It Looks Because . . . It's Complicated" (haha) or maybe "The Jobs Report Is Down From Last Time But As Expected for a Mature Economy." More descriptive, but kind of a clunker. I didn't say writing tight headlines was easy. Either way, I am not irritated at all by the original headline, because it gives me an accurate indication of whether I would read the rest of the article. In my case, I wouldn't. I look at the economy like the weather: complex, hard to predict, and of little effect on me unless it's really bad. > News stories are different from editorial, opinion, > informational, entertainment, etc. articles. I agree. Sometimes you're in the mood for a rambling essay. Some things are complicated or indeterminate and cannot be easily summed up.

by chaz 10y ago

combatentropy 10y ago

> How would you retitle this article? I don't think the headline is clickbait: "The Jobs Report Is Not Quite as Terrible as It Looks." It's vague, yes, but it would be hard to cram much more into the headline. If you read the article, the reasons he gives for "why the jobs report is not quite as terrible as it looks" is a hodgepodge of unrelated things: (a) the report's margin of error is 100,000; (b) a three-month average is better; (c) a wave of people are retiring; and (d) "as the economy approaches full employment, jobs growth must slow." It's hard to summarize it better than: "The Jobs Report Is Not Quite as Terrible as It Looks Because . . . It's Complicated" (haha) or maybe "The Jobs Report Is Down From Last Time But As Expected for a Mature Economy." More descriptive, but kind of a clunker. I didn't say writing tight headlines was easy. Either way, I am not irritated at all by the original headline, because it gives me an accurate indication of whether I would read the rest of the article. In my case, I wouldn't. I look at the economy like the weather: complex, hard to predict, and of little effect on me unless it's really bad. > News stories are different from editorial, opinion, > informational, entertainment, etc. articles. I agree. Sometimes you're in the mood for a rambling essay. Some things are complicated or indeterminate and cannot be easily summed up.