Hacked - The Secret Pictures Of
Trump's Australian Sex Life
By Moon
Of Alabama
October 13,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- Headlines lie to catch attention. Only few read
beyond them.
They will
miss the facts, and the falsehood of the headlines.
It is a dangerous development.
Here is an
Australian example of current headline writing:
Top secret information about
Australia’s military hacked
The lede:
TOP secret technical information about new
fighter jets, navy vessels, and surveillance
aircraft has been stolen from an Australian
defence contractor.
The story
could be relevant - if true. But it does not hold
what the headline promises. The text says:
- "..
the firm was subcontracted four levels down from
defence contracts."
- ".. a
mum and dad type business ... with about 50
employees"
- "the
admin password, to enter the company’s web
portal, was ‘admin’ and the guest password was
‘guest’"
- "the
information ... included a diagram in which you
could zoom in down to the captain’s chair and
see that it was one metre away from the
navigation chair"
- "the
information disclosed was commercially
sensitive, it was unclassified"
The last
snippet completely rebuts the headline. It appears
in 18th of the 20 paragraph story.
A truthful
(but boring) headline might have said: "Mechanics
rat-shop puts marketing stuff on open website". No
one would have clicked on it.
Headlines
disproved by the following text have become common:
"It was
not immediately clear what Trump was responding
to."
"A large
number of ads appeared in [other] areas of the
country that were not heavily contested in the
elections."
"It is too
soon to map out exactly how the drug war will
affect the health of Filipinos."
News
content is now of lesser relevance than ever.
"Clicks" are generated by headlines:
"Clicks"
generate "visits" which convert into advertising
revenue. Such headlines make economic sense -
short-term. But the best paying advertisers seek a
quality audience. In the long-term they will avoid
such sites.
Once
upon a time sensationalist false headlines were the
loony realm of tabloid media. That is unfortunately
no longer the case. Headlines of even reputable
media
no longer transmit facts.
One has to dive deep into the stories to get to real
information.
This trend
will lead to a further stultification of the
population. It makes it easier to manipulate the
plebs.
This
article was originally published by
Moon Of
Alabama
-
|