We journalists love talking about our trade, and most of the conversation has been negative lately. But while we\u2019re bemoaning newsroom shutdowns, we may be missing a story happening right under our noses. It\u2019s a slow shift back to maintaining readership without clickbait. It\u2019s called rebuilding readership loyalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The industry may finally be waking up to the reality that readers are tired of being bombarded by content they don\u2019t care about. We all know the formula: Pump out enough headlines and maybe, just maybe, one headline will entice us into clicking. Instead, tired viewers are seeking relief. More and more, we (yours truly included) skip the relentless headline huckstering to hover over feel-good videos. (My favorites are those of cuddly cartoon animals in cozy dens, while a snowstorm rages outside.) Advertisers bankrolling the headline craze are becoming more selective. And platforms that used to be eager for just about any content are now asking for money to host posts or articles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Readers will always be interested in big events happening elsewhere, and news platforms will continue to provide them. What is interesting are developments on another level. Even some of the bigger news outlets are starting to return to community\u2011centered reporting. I don\u2019t mean the performative \u201cwe care about our readers\u201d nonsense, but actually sending reporters to talk to people and hosting events that mean something to them. The Boston Globe has launched entire teams dedicated to Rhode Island and New Hampshire, sending reporters into neighborhoods and hosting real\u2011world events. The Philadelphia Inquirer built a Community News desk that embeds journalists directly in local neighborhoods. These aren\u2019t nostalgia projects \u2014 they\u2019re working models of how large newsrooms can rebuild trust by getting close to the people they serve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a lesson that has kept some of the tiny independents thriving, while the big players in the news business flounder \u2014 a return to the idea that the only way to stay afloat in the sea of clickbait is to offer readers and viewers something that they can relate to because it affects them directly. So after skimming the world headlines, they can dwell on and perhaps interact with news they can use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can find more of my writing and reporting here: We journalists love talking about our trade, and most of the conversation has been negative lately. But while we\u2019re bemoaning newsroom shutdowns, we may be missing a story happening right under our noses. It\u2019s a slow shift back to maintaining readership without clickbait. It\u2019s called rebuilding readership loyalty. The industry may finally be waking up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgejahn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgejahn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgejahn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgejahn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgejahn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1527"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/georgejahn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1529,"href":"https:\/\/georgejahn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527\/revisions\/1529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgejahn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgejahn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgejahn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgejahn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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