by Jason Salas, KUAM News Tuesday, January 24, 2006 Subscribe to Jason's newsfeed   E-mail this article Printable version KUAM Toolbar Web Widgets Get RSS headlines

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Every so often we in the business of producing mass media news are criticized by learned pundits and ignoramuses alike for liberally practicing the "if it bleeds, it leads" concept. This implies that we deliberately present content in ways that sensationalize otherwise trivial issues; unfairly glorifying acts of violence, moral depravity or debauchery; or managing the order of the stories within newscasts so as to promote stronger items as a means of securing ratings and profits.

I won't argue that this happens...to an extent.

Certainly competition drives organizations to display the day's top stories in a fashion more visually engaging and emotionally hard-hitting than their rivals. But for any news agency to bury a headline or depreciate the value of a story to elevate a lesser item merely because of the involvement of an extreme act isn't responsible journalism. Just reporting the news isn't the only thing we're paid to do - we have an inherent obligation to determine the greatest relative cultural significance of each event and offer them in a way that (hopefully) sustains captive viewing.

Here's where I as an industry guy step in and defend mainstream media. I'm herein appending a corollary to the "Bleeding Equals Leading" equation for news in The Web Age: an issue's hierarchical position online - on a web site, in an e-mail newsletter, in an RSS feed - ultimately doesn't matter. People are always going to be drawn to and will continually click on saucy headlines.

Consider some hard data to reinforce the concept. Usage patterns from KUAM.COM imply the news articles generating the greatest amount of traffic are those with titles containing the words "kill", "dead", "crash", "fatal", "corruption", "rape", "indictment" and "sex". And many weren't even the featured cover story on our homepage. What's more, the keywords registering the highest recurrence in our internal search tool include "infidelity", "trial", "molest", "prison", "arrested" and "murder". So, stronger material is being pulled by our audiences even after running its course as a readily available link. And on the Web there isn't a static arrangement of stories as would be the case in a traditional broadcast - you choose which items to read and disregard those you find uninteresting.

So regardless of the order, link depth or even immediacy of access to a story, you're demanding the bleeding-edge stuff and pushing it to the top of the heap, in terms of what's most read. The natural attraction to extreme stories is human nature across all major news sites, with viewers/listeners/readers/users gravitating towards the more racy storylines, even if just intrigued by a terse title.

There's your new truth: notwithstanding an organization's production tactics on-air, users will still drive headlines dealing with graphic material atop the list of those stories most popular online. Literally as well as figuratively, bad news sells.

So as a media consumer, feel free to scrutinize your local and network media outlets. Openly question their motives and political alliances, demand precision quality control measures, expect fair and objective storytelling, and hold those tasked to let you know what happened in the world today to extremely high standards. We can take it. And we rely on it to let us know how to best satisfy your insatiable appetite for information, to keep our egos in check, and to continue to get better at our beloved craft. Across diverse platforms and with multiple formats, be a whistleblower - keep a keen eye out for the "if it bleeds, it leads" theory in action, and call out organizations that you feel practice it.

Just realize that at the end of the day, at least for online content, you're doing the same thing.