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Why do so many US articles sound like a story frim Grandpa Simpson? "It was a cold Wednesday, with the wind blowing from the north..." I'm curious if this is
by EngineerBetter 9y ago
Why do so many US articles sound like a story frim Grandpa Simpson?
"It was a cold Wednesday, with the wind blowing from the north..."
I'm curious if this is commonplace, and if its native audience find it irksome in the online medium. I can understand this style in print, but very often I click an HN link, and hit back before finishing the first paragraph as it becomes clear the article is not written in the pyramid style.
- adventured 9y agoI'm curious which part of the story you're referring to in particular. If it's this opening: "One Sunday in November 20-year-old Alani Murrieta of Phoenix began to feel sick and left work early." US articles often intro with things like that, on the premise that it constructs a human narrative aspect to the story that wider audiences prefer, rather than strictly / only focusing on the scientific aspect of it. It's basically an attempt by a scientific publication, to reach a little beyond its core readership and appeal to eg social media click-throughs (one viral uptake on Facebook and they probably triple their audience for a given article).
- toomanybeersies 9y agoIt's the new standard for long form writing. They're trying to craft a story to keep the reader interested, they're trying to make it more human.
- nitwit005 9y agoWhich, in turn, has resulted in people learning to automatically skip several paragraphs of text, much like how people skip the intro portions of YouTube videos.
- cgag 9y agoIt's commonplace for long form stuff, which I never read because of it. Title got me, but the answer to "How does the flu actually kill people" isn't going to start with "one sunday in november". I was interested, but not that interested.
- Retric 9y agoUsing a specific example of someone young quickly dying is interesting because it's different than our preconceived notions. Further, large numbers don't actually mean much to most people so again using details from a specific case is useful. Many years more people die from the flu than car accidents, but because the flu tends to take the young, old, or immunocompromised people tend to think of it as a non issue. When the reality is you feel severely sick because your life is actually threatened.
- isoskeles 9y agoI expect pyramid style for news stories about particular events, not for anything else. "How does the flu actually kill people?" isn't really an event, and I would be surprised if anyone could fit this story into the pyramid style and make it interesting to read.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoYou mean inverted pyramid? If so, then it may be a journalistic term, but it's universal and pretty much synonymous with how to deliver information effectively.
- rdiddly 9y agoIt is irksome at times, especially when I'm expecting concise journalism. And it's worse when you realize a given piece was deliberately written in this style to be more "appealing" (I wouldn't quite use the term "dumbed down," but it's in the same ballpark), and it ironically ends up being done poorly in that format, when it could easily have made a great "pyramid" style article. And by "done poorly" I mean things like, the "story" they're trying to lead off with isn't particularly interesting, and/or has only the most superficial tie-in to the rest of the piece. That's a sign that they tried too hard to graft it on. So I tied an onion to my belt. Which was the style at the time.