Articles published online and in print can be opinions, news or even satirical commentary. However, the language used in the headlines and bodies of these stories is just as influential as the content they cover.
Journalists are taught that, while brief, headlines are what truly draw readers to articles. A good title is to writers what a good trailer is to movie buffs: a short and sweet representation of a project that doesn’t give away all the fun.
Since headlines are what bring in an audience, some media outlets report using flamboyant and sometimes tasteless vocabulary to draw views.
One example of a low-blow headline is the one that inspired this piece. It is an article published by the New York Post, discussing a man who accidentally killed himself at home while splitting frozen burgers with a knife. The title read “Loner stabbed himself to death trying to separate two frozen burgers with a knife”.
The man this article discussed was dead for several days before the police carried out a wellness check and found him. He was someone who mattered and should not be deemed a ‘loner’ or have his accident reduced to a lame mistake in a headline. He does have family who are now mourning his passing.
The New York Post is not the only media outlet choosing flashy and borderline heedless headlines to attract attention though.
ITV News and BBC have both recently published articles with headlines demeaning and dehumanizing their subject. The first reads “Black actor who faced death threats calls for industry-wide action,” and the second reads “Trans woman killed in Georgia day after anti-LGBT law passed.”
While neither of these headlines are necessarily inaccurate, they do not name the subject. This, to me, feels disrespectful to the person being discussed in order to use more buzz words. Francesca Amewudah-Rivers and Kesaria Abramidze deserve to be named and not used for clickbait.
MIT Sloan reviewed a study in July related to headlines and misinformation impacting news readers. Jennifer Allen, a fourth year PhD Student in marketing at MIT Sloan School of Management, looked at how news impacted vaccination rates during the COVID-19 outbreak.
She knew that while misinformation led people astray, articles flagged as inaccurate didn’t reach as many readers. However, Allen’s review found that slightly misleading or “provocative” headlines from mainstream news sources reached far more people and played a huge part in how people felt about getting vaccinated.
“Allen and her coauthors found that exposure to stories they came to define as “vaccine-skeptical,” — that is, stories that were not false and alluded to potentially harmful health effects resulting from the vaccine — “reduced vaccination intentions 46 times more than misinformation flagged by fact-checkers,” the MIT article said.
Headlines are sometimes the only information readers take in, so while they should be bright and intriguing, the vocabulary used shouldn’t be inconsiderate or cunning. Journalists must be mindful of the impacts stemming from words used in articles, and readers need to be mindful of the information published.
As a writer, editor and reader, I understand drawing in an audience might make news corporations feel successful, but transparency and diligent reporting is what keeps true journalism alive. Misguiding the public to make a name for yourself is cheap and diverges from the true purpose of journalism, so I hope to see an improvement in ethics and morality used in the newsroom.
