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from the can-we-get-this-on-all-the-pages dept.
Lily Hay Newman reports that when big news stories evolve into tragedies and people are flocking to read the latest bulletins online, many major newspapers have measures in place so there isn't a dancing Geico newt competing with dire news. The NYT confirmed that the site has a manual switch that can put individual articles in "sensitivity" mode. The settings seem to be either standard, "noads," or finally "tragedy," depending on the content of the story.
In the case of Germanwings Flight 4U 9525, the Times eventually upgraded to tragedy. "It’s interesting in part because it’s almost an acknowledgement that ads are invasive and uncomfortable," says Parker Higgins referring to the meta tag: meta property="ad_sensitivity" content="noads". "There are no Google results for the tag, so it looks like it hasn’t been documented," says Parker, "but it seems like a pretty low-tech way to keep possibly insensitive ads off a very sensitive story—an admirable effort." After all, the Internet is filled with lists of unfortunate ad placements, and the worst ones are probably upbeat ads intruding on solemn moments. "In these types of tragedy cases, it’s an editorial decision that we make," says a spokeswoman for CNN Digital.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday March 30 2015, @04:56PM
The thing about doing news over a wider geographic area is that you can always find something happening somewhere to tell whatever kind of narrative you want to tell.
You want to pump up an image of black men being scary and dangerous? Chances are approximately 100% that you can find somewhere in the US, somebody sympathetic murdered by a black man today. (You could have done the same thing with white men too.) You want to pump up an image of black men as victims of police misconduct? Chances are approximately 100% that you can find somewhere in the US a black man with a sympathetic story of police injustice that is relevant today. You want to push the idea that global warming is a big deal? Show the places with unusually high temperatures. You want to push the idea that global warming is a fraud? Show the places with unusually low temperatures. And so forth.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Geezer on Monday March 30 2015, @05:15PM
Well, yeah. Cops and black males kill people every day. So do asian women and, for all I know, so do hispanic transvestites. Any media outlet can scrape the wires for fodder to feed the narrative du jour.
However, the story (I believe) is about late-breaking tragedies of national/international interest rather than the every-day hype and faux outrage of broadcast news.
I was too stunned to notice at the time, but does anyone remember if the networks took commercial breaks (not FCC-mandated station IDs) as the twin towers were burning?
(Score: 4, Funny) by dyingtolive on Monday March 30 2015, @05:25PM
I was in high school at the time. I don't think whatever channel they put on had any. It might have been one of the 24/7 stations though.
To be fair, I also was waking up from my Spanish class nap because the TV was on, and idly wondering to myself how stupid you had to be to fly a plane into such an obviously large building. I don't think I understood that it was the intent until I got home and had it explained to me.
It also seemed a little strange that we were getting out of school at 11:00 or so because of something that happened halfway across the country, and that gas prices were over twice what they should have been, but hey, I was out of school.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by scruffybeard on Monday March 30 2015, @05:34PM
I was too stunned to notice at the time, but does anyone remember if the networks took commercial breaks (not FCC-mandated station IDs) as the twin towers were burning?
I recall putting the news on at work within 15 minutes of the first reports, then going home about an hour or so later, watching the news well into the late afternoon before any commercials were aired.
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Monday March 30 2015, @09:13PM
I don't remember any commercials for at least the first 3 or 4 days afterwards.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 31 2015, @02:47AM
No commercials for 4 days. [google.com]
-- gewg_