Wow. Lots to read. Is there a tl;dr on this?
Actually thatâs probably why cliches in writing and unchallenging design ideas so often get employed.
omg! Look at him! Iâll never guess whatâs going to happen next!
Another thing to think about might be why television news, or whatever you might be talking about when saying âhumans literally canât help but make really bad individual decisions here!â is why television news, or whatever, is designed to exploit human psychological blind-spots.
Itâs like analyzing why people all seem fall of a particular bridge more often than other bridges, and coming to the conclusion âthat people lie; they tell you they want to get to the other side, but they will fall if they get the chance. So much so that building trap-bridges, designed to make anyone walking the bridge fall of it, is very easy! They must really want to fall! Idiots!â
This is media saying that you were asking for it, basically.
Maybe. Or maybe itâs because the US right made Al Jazeera into an organization synonymous with terrorism during the Bush years, and virtually no cable companies are willing to carry them because of it.
I just like my long form journalism written down.
if I watched any TV news, it probably would be something like Al-Jazeera.
Is there a link for the article in The Atlantic? I donât see one in the post anywhere.
The article in question:
Or maybe people who want long form journalism want it from someone they trust like NPR. And, for whatever CRAZY reason not the ruling family of Qatar.
I was going to sayâŚ
Seriously, how would anyone think that a network called Al Jazeera was ever going to work in 'Merica, outside liberal enclaves? They may as well have called it Al Qaeda, for all the average American knows.
I think it would be great if it worked out, but I think that the name alone is going to stop significant market penetration for the next ten years at the very least.
In all fairness, their target market isnât fucking idiots.
Is there some kind of SEO gained from having those two mentioned in the URL?
Powerful. So powerful.
Al Jazeera seems to be generally well respected from what I can tell. None of my local cable affiliates carry it so I canât verify this, but Iâve heard that they do a good job of covering world events without excessive bias. They are supposedly better than CNN, MSNBC, FOXNEWS, etcâŚ, but thatâs like saying youâre the shortest person on an NBA team.
Itâs a little disingenuous for the article to complain that Buzzfeedâs â17 amazing weird things you never learn before youâre thirty!â type articles go viral and Atlanticâs articles donât. Theyâre designed to go viral from the title, and since theyâre listicles, people know they can read them before the boss catches them surfinâ the olâ webz.
If the Atlantic called its Iraq articles things like âI Got You Babe: 10 Surreal Facts About Sunni and Shia!â they would probably go viral too.
I absolutely loved Al Jazeera English. I was THRILLED when they said they were bringing it to my local cable. I paid extra to get Current because it was going to turn into Al Jazeera America.
Al Jazeera America is crap. They tried to turn Al Jazeera English into what they thought an American news show would look like. It is absolute rubbish and exactly as bad as the rest of American âNewsâ programming.
To add insult to injury, they BLOCK AJE on the internet to try to force me to watch AJ America.
iâve been reading them since they started AJA, and i really like them â yes, even their long-form articles. i guess the premise of the article explains why Bb now seems to prefer shorter, punchy quip-type articles with links elsewhere. MO MONEY MO MONEY MO MONEY.
Me too. When I am inclined to think, I prefer text. Talking heads, radio documentaries, videos, all of those just make me impatient.
IâM not whats wrong with people, you are whats wrong with people!
Fluency also explains one of the truisms of political news: That most liberals prefer to read and watch liberals (because it feels easy), while conservatives prefer to read and watch conservatives (because it feels easy). Itâs a not-even-industry-secret that down-the-middle political reporting that doesnât massage old biases is a hard sell for TV audiences.
Which is why only things that are held to a more rigorous standards should be allowed to be called âNewsâ.
Fox, CNN, and the rest should be called âInfotainmentâ and shouldnât be allowed to say or trademark things like âFair and Balancedâ when they so obviously are not. They shouldnât be given special access to those in power and authority and they shouldnât be playing in airports and other public places. . that gives them the false appearance of integrity.
Itâs kind of like how astrology and homeopathics donât get to be called âscienceâ and donât deserve to be treated as such.
