3 ms·

"this is exactly the opposite of how news articles are supposed to be written." I'm not accusing you of doing this on purpose, but there's a certain amount of

by jerf 6y ago

"this is exactly the opposite of how news articles are supposed to be written." I'm not accusing you of doing this on purpose, but there's a certain amount of equivocation in the phrase "news article" there. Yes, that's a style that is recommended for factual news articles in a newspaper context, but that's not the only form of "news article". Call this a "news essay" instead and give it its own style and it might make more sense. It's been around for a long time. Could call it the 20th-century equivalent of clickbait and probably not be far off. "There's an exciting revolutionary change to physics coming... but first, the full life story of the thesis advisor's influential father... keep reading...." Arguably it's more a form of entertainment than information.

hobs 6y ago
Sure, but most of the content they are writing is neither entertaining or engaging, its long and wandering and I couldn't care less. No novel is allowed to lollygag around the point its trying to achieve in the way these articles flagrantly waste your time. It's like someone misunderstood that the act of moving your eyes along the page is not interesting in and of itself.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
  >No novel is allowed to lollygag around the point its trying to achieve in the way these articles flagrantly waste your time. With barely less than a second's though: Watership Down, a hugely popular novel in the 1970s, spends untold amounts of text/paper immersed in detailed descriptions of the flora that the characters are moving through or eating. Why not just say "I don't enjoy this style of writing", rather than trying to come up with some supposedly objective metrics for how other people should write?
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    There is lollygagging in irrelevancies, and luxuriating in details. The distinction can be quite arbitrary, but it usually does stand out. Herman Melville and Neal Stephenson also come to mind. In nonfiction, John McFee.

by jerf 6y ago

hobs 6y ago

Sure, but most of the content they are writing is neither entertaining or engaging, its long and wandering and I couldn't care less. No novel is allowed to lollygag around the point its trying to achieve in the way these articles flagrantly waste your time. It's like someone misunderstood that the act of moving your eyes along the page is not interesting in and of itself.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
>No novel is allowed to lollygag around the point its trying to achieve in the way these articles flagrantly waste your time. With barely less than a second's though: Watership Down, a hugely popular novel in the 1970s, spends untold amounts of text/paper immersed in detailed descriptions of the flora that the characters are moving through or eating. Why not just say "I don't enjoy this style of writing", rather than trying to come up with some supposedly objective metrics for how other people should write?
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  There is lollygagging in irrelevancies, and luxuriating in details. The distinction can be quite arbitrary, but it usually does stand out. Herman Melville and Neal Stephenson also come to mind. In nonfiction, John McFee.