Nope, and not bloggers, either. Well, not all of either group. That phrase is describing search engines.... the inspiration for one more item to add to the journalism school syllabus: "Writing headlines that Google will like."
Honest.
According to Sunday's New York Times story, "This Boring Headline Is Written for Google," the Times Web site staff "has undergone some
search-engine optimization training" -- learning to write headlines that are simple enough for the Internet's search robots to connect to the actual topics of the stories. And the Times mouse-pushers aren't the only ones.
As the News in Review page summary put it (in a Google-friendly fashion, I'm sure), "News organizations
large and small have begun experimenting with tweaking their Web sites
for better search engine results." We're already asking students to practice summarizing stories in recognition of Web readers' skimming, scanning and browsing behavior. But the search engines skim considerably faster than humans -- and with less imagination.
The Times' Steve Lohr uses the headline on last Tuesday's Florida-UCLA game as an example. I would have guessed the Web headline, "Gators Cap Run With First Title," was chosen just to fit the tighter space allotted on the page, but Lohr says search-consciousness was another factor. (The print edition's headline was, "It's Chemistry Over Pedigree as Gators Roll to First
Title." The problem is obvious. I wonder how many Google searches for "alligator breeding" pop up that story?)
Lohr sums up the issue nicely:
"The search-engine 'bots' that crawl the Web are increasingly
influential, delivering 30 percent or more of the traffic on some
newspaper, magazine or television news Web sites. And traffic means
readers and advertisers, at a time when the mainstream media is
desperately trying to make a living on the Web. "So news
organizations large and small have begun experimenting with tweaking
their Web sites for better search engine results. But software bots are
not your ordinary readers: They are blazingly fast yet numbingly
literal-minded...."
I wonder if our friends at the tabloids have to think about this as much as broadsheet Web site editors. I doubt that Google would have trouble parsing the New York Post's classic, "Headless Body in Topless Bar."
Elsewhere in the Times, there's advice to journalists on what not to write -- at least not in their office e-mail. See Lorne Manly's "Before You Hit Send, Pause, Reflect," inspired by the troubles of John Green, executive producer of the weekend edition of "Good Morning America" on ABC. Of course, if journalists were encouraged to wear all their opinions on their sleeves -- or blogs -- slipping one into an e-mail wouldn't provoke such scandals among reporters valiantly (or half-heartedly) trying to be objective, or at least fair and... omniskeptical?
1:42:53 AM 
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