• ramirezmike@programming.dev
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    3 months ago

    I studied news journalism in college and they kinda hammered in that in news journalism it’s more important to communicate information consistently and to target a wide audience than it is to make “good writing.”

    There are style guides you have to follow and words like “slammed” end up getting used a lot despite not quite being accurate because they’re words that are used a lot.

    The other thing is that usually the person writing the headlines isn’t the journalist… and sometimes they do a lot of versions of the same headline and when people click more because of the word slammed it ends up sticking.

    • WallEx@feddit.de
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      3 months ago

      So they use the word often, because its often used by them? Pretty ass backwards, but also makes sense for sensationalist “journalism”

      • ramirezmike@programming.dev
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        3 months ago

        I don’t see how it’s backwards, the word drives clicks and is commonly used. It’s unfortunate but most journalism has to be profit-motivated to survive these days.

    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      How hard is it to ban the word slammed in your style guide? Excuses are the nails to build a house of failure.

      • ramirezmike@programming.dev
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        3 months ago

        I kinda alluded to it but they probably don’t want to ban the word because it’s commonly used and it drives clicks.