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I think the point is that the newsworthiness here is that a nation is fighting for control of their TLD. It doesn't really matter what nation it is, and most pe

by jolmg 6y ago

I think the point is that the newsworthiness here is that a nation is fighting for control of their TLD. It doesn't really matter what nation it is, and most people have probably never heard of it. The issue is that there exists a nation at all that has this problem. I think most would assume that all ccTLDs are well under the control of their respective nations. IOW, I don't think headlines aim or should aim for information density, but rather focusing on the points that makes the story newsworthy to the target audience. Aiming for information density causes distraction from the point of the story and consequently maybe disinterest the specific potential readers the author is aiming for. Saying "a tiny island nation" rather than specifying the nation is also better because it focuses on the fact that its problem is probably due to being a tiny island nation, i.e. a nation that is largely unknown and ignored. Putting it like that might invoke sympathy. Saying "Niue" instead might cause the target audience to think the news is not really relevant to them since they don't know "Niue".

netsharc 6y ago
So you wrote 3 paragraphs to describe.. clickbait. Yeah it's obvious the headline was written the way it was to generate a page view. IMO the addition of the "spoilers" don't detract that there's a poor tiny nation suffering. If they didn't know Niue, they would know after the headline that it's a small island country, and look at that, without needing to read the article (but oh no, what about their ad view!).
- jolmg 6y ago
  No, clickbait is using tactics to attract even people that wouldn't be interested in the story otherwise. Clickbait many times doesn't even summarize the content. It's just sensational and enticing nonsense. I specifically said to focus on the points of interest of the target audience, just the people that would be interested in the story. Doing otherwise wouldn't make for a good summary, which is what a title ultimately is. As an aside, > So you wrote 3 paragraphs... that type of language is really dismissive and rude. I wish you wouldn't use it.

by jolmg 6y ago

netsharc 6y ago

So you wrote 3 paragraphs to describe.. clickbait. Yeah it's obvious the headline was written the way it was to generate a page view. IMO the addition of the "spoilers" don't detract that there's a poor tiny nation suffering. If they didn't know Niue, they would know after the headline that it's a small island country, and look at that, without needing to read the article (but oh no, what about their ad view!).

jolmg 6y ago
No, clickbait is using tactics to attract even people that wouldn't be interested in the story otherwise. Clickbait many times doesn't even summarize the content. It's just sensational and enticing nonsense. I specifically said to focus on the points of interest of the target audience, just the people that would be interested in the story. Doing otherwise wouldn't make for a good summary, which is what a title ultimately is. As an aside, > So you wrote 3 paragraphs... that type of language is really dismissive and rude. I wish you wouldn't use it.