Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Washington Post Front Page June 23

The Washington Post’s online front page is largely reflective of the conversation the class held yesterday about “UpWorthy” headlines, focusing more on sensation and grabbing attention rather than providing a solid quick piece of information. As might be expected, there is a definite distinction between the front page of the print version and the online version, which seems to have more of a focus on generating the most clicks even if the article wouldn’t traditionally fall on a front page. For example, the “In the News” ticker right below the paper’s title ranges from confederate flags, to Tom Brady, to Diddy, to DC Weather; the larger range of interests that the paper provides immediate access to, the more likely that any given reader will see something that will keep them on the site. 

The leading headline of the Washington Post’s online version is dedicated to a startling update to an older story about a fatal incident in the DC Metro. The phrasing of the headline immediately grabbed my attention: “Screams heard as smoke filled Metro train”. While this is certainly a good hook that led me to read further into the story, it was also somewhat misleading. I was initially under the impression that an accident was a current issue in the process of being resolved, not simply new information released regarding an event months past. This does however strike me as an appropriate leading story: it is closely relevant to DC/Metro residents, it is somewhat sensational and therefore attention-grabbing, and it gives a small break from the plethora of recent stories about Charleston, flags, and race relations (not that these aren't important!).

The other leading article examined the issues with a federal computer upgrade that may be creating as many problems as it was intended to fix, due to what is essentially conveyed as a lack of knowledge among those who were implementing the upgrade. This story is timely and linked to other current events, with the first alert of an issue dated to June 17, House hearings on similar breaches currently taking place, and hacking issues fresh in the public mind. The headline on the initial page was brief, informative, and unbiased. The only opinions I encountered in this article were either directly attributed to their sources in a quote (“‘We believe this is overly optimistic..’ the auditors said”) or backed up by enough information that they are transformed from what could have been a leading opinion into an accurate observation (“Also questionable is the ultimate cost...” followed by a long quote from the auditors exposing the confusion around costs and funding).  I found it interesting that while these leading stories are new to today’s paper, many of the following articles were the same as yesterday’s paper, which I can’t imagine would ever happen in the print version, although they did provide an option to view an online replica of the print version if you pay for a membership. 

Immediately below the leading stories, the Post provides a “Morning Mix” of headlines adjacent to a list of the current Opinion articles. I was surprised that the Opinion section was given such high priority, but it does make sense when reading the headlines of the articles. They seem aimed at pushing buttons and pulling readers in through the emotion around the topics, which, in a highly socially conscious, racially diverse, and politically involved city like DC, makes sense as a tactic to gain readers. The “Morning Mix” was slightly confusing to me as a section as it wasn’t clear which articles were also opinion pieces and which were traditional news stories, with some of the articles even overlapping between both sections. 


These more defined sections are followed by a number of other articles from various sections of the paper related to a number of topics that all stuck me as being connected not by specific subject, scale, or proximity, so much as their current status as “trending” topics in public conversation: gender rights, race relations in the US, celebrity mishaps or deaths. This assortment of articles speaks to my overall impression of the online front page as focused on quick clicks, short attention spans, and news as a primarily social construct. The leading stories show a mix of these aspects and more traditional journalism, but there is a definite sense that the Post is organizing at least their online front page with the intent to initiate conversation around the articles, both related to the topics and the writing itself. 

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