In Jack Shafer's recent Slate article, "Fishermen Beat Rare Dolphin to Death," it appears he chastises several common news site usage of article headlines. Sites, such as CNN.com, MSNBC.com, and Foxnews.com seem to make use of the most extravagant headlines they can create to lure readers. Shafer states, "What the sites really love are sordid stories that can be presented as serials, if not cliffhangers."
Media is a business. A website, just as any other newspaper, needs to create revenue to keep their site running. In what way do sites generate money? They do it through the number of hits they receive; more hits a website has, the greater the desire to advertise on that site, thus creating revenue. But the question here isn't how they make money.
I think what Shafer's trying to argue is the ethical issue of what websites, such as the three previously mentioned, post. In Shafer's anaylsis, it appears each site tries to outshine the other. The topics of some of the "top stories" are absolutely outlandish, but they all have one thing in common - they are beginning to have the appearance as that of the National Esquire. A majority of their top stories are about issues relating to sex, drugs, and murder. My question is, when did information, deriving from credible websites, become so Hollywood? I don't care about how a "British teen films herself trying to kill parents." Personally, it's a degrading to find the front pages of these three websites splattered with useless information. True, it makes for great table talk, but I think my IQ may have just decreased by one point.
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