Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Observer on Line Edition Headline Baiting

Deputy Investigated, Fired after Inmate Beating

The above is from today's sidebar headlines on the Charlotte Observer on line edition, and I like many others clicked to find out the it wasn't a Mecklenburg County Deputy.

A link from a few days ago; "Bus Crashes Kills All On Board" got my attention, clicking the link only to discover that the bus was in Honduras.

The link should have matched the story's headline:

S.C. deputy investigated, fired after inmate beating

Just another lame attempt by the Charlotte Observer to get one more page click.

A decade ago no editor would have let a baiting headline out the door. Today it's a common tactic to get you the reader to "click", the trouble is we don't have time for games.

The 1/1000th of cent the Observer earns from your click is hardly worth the cost in your wasted time, time that added up (if you accept most studies about worker productivity and on line habits at work) cost the country billions in lost productivity.

So give the Observer back some of their own dirt.

Send an email to rthames@charlotteobserver.com

And put: Great Job! Well Done! in the subject box.

Then tell Rick Thames that the headline baiting sucks and to knock it off. It they don't stop you'll stop reading the on-line edition altogether and just get your news from a feeder service.

3 comments:

ThaQueenCity said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ThaQueenCity said...

try this again...LOL....

That's like a headline the other day stating "Chief Police Quits" or something to that effect and come to find out it was NOT our fearless wonder Rottney....LOTS of people VERY disappointed with that headline! Including me....roflmao!

Adam Butler said...

If it was a sidebar headline, it obviously wasn't a big local story. If it had been a Mecklenburg S.O. employee, it would have been the first story with a picture.