The new role of journalism

For this article to work, you need to agree with me from the outset. The role of journalism has changed. People understand articles just from the first paragraph.

Ok, everyone on the same page? No? Let me explain.

People are smart. Watch most people reading a newspaper, and they almost seem to glance over everything. It’s not because they’re skim reading, but more so because they read the headline, and then the first few sentences.

We are at a point when everyone understands how a newspaper article works. The pyramid structure (most important information first, and then the lesser info further down) has made it possible for everyone to digest the main crux of a story, and then move on. Sure, if the story interests the person, they will read the whole article. But to get an understanding of the news, no more than the first few lines are needed.

If you’ve gotten this far into the article, it’s obviously interested you, or you needed a little bit more information to understand my point. Some people will have simply read the first paragraph. If they agreed with me, they’ll move on. And they’re idiots.

If you discuss this post with someone who is “smart” (i.e. just read the first paragraph), they will be able to tell you the point of this article. If you probe them further, however, you can explain that they were insulted halfway through.

But I’m not trying to insult them. I’m proving a second point. Most of the time, but not all the time, an entire article needs to be read from start to finish.

When it comes to simple news items, it isn’t necessary to read to the end. But when it is an opinion or comment piece, or an article that a journalist has included some sort of editorial opinion, it is almost always necessary to read to the end.

And if you get to the end, you know a hell of a lot more about the article than many people. But you could have also spent that time on something more important than a little diatribe about the changing role of journalists. Because in the end, it didn’t address the headline.