How the internet is breaking journalism (and what it means to you)

I recently realized something very critical about how the internet works today and how broken it is.

The assumptions that readers are making about the information that they find online — even at relatively “reputable” sites — are wrong. The internet is breaking what “journalism” means. As a result, it’s become even more critical for online information consumers (that’s you and me, by the way) to take on a burden that we have not been trained to even concern ourselves with until now.

The burden of confirmation.

I’ve written about it before, but the sad fact is that you just can’t believe everything you read on the internet. And it is now your practical responsibility to do the legwork to confirm whether something is, or is not, true.

And yes, I agree, that’s totally broken.

And it’s partly our fault.

What drives the internet

Most websites on the internet measure traffic. More visitors equals more success. It’s as simple as that. Whether the success is measured in advertising revenue or product sales, the bottom line is that more eyeballs are critical to most site’s success.

And I’ll admit that this is true for Ask Leo! More visitors make my endeavor more successful.

So, how does one get traffic?

My approach has been relatively straightforward: write articles that I think are helpful and informative, that answer real questions asked by real people, sprinkle them with my own editorial and other content, and hope that people discover me via the search engines when they’re looking for an answer to a problem. Unfortunately, that approach isn’t as effective as it once was.

Perhaps as a result, more and more sites use different techniques to attract site visitors or “clicks.”

Attracting clicks

Perhaps the most common approach to generating traffic these days is the sensational or salacious headline — one that says something so strong or outrageous that you just have to click through to read more.

“How the Internet is Breaking Journalism” might be considered such a headline, although I think it’s fairly mild in comparison to some that I’ve seen. (I’m not really very good at headline writing.)

The resulting article may, or may not, deliver on the headline’s promise. Many do not. I hope this one does.

The headline served its purpose: it got you to click, the site got a “page view,” and perhaps an ad was shown. Mission accomplished. The fact that the accompanying article was total rubbish or content-free is immaterial. (I hope this one isn’t one of those. :-) )

Many go further, continuing with provocative and typically unsubstantiated information — all to get you to spend more time on the site, click through to additional pages, or even better, recommend the article to your friends.

All at the expense of what we often refer to as the truth, accuracy, or occasionally balance.

The truth is often boring and doesn’t generate page views.

When it comes to the news, however, there’s another factor at play.

News in internet time

Because the internet is instantaneous, there’s tremendous competitive pressure to get your article published as quickly as technologically possible.

This often happens at the expense of facts, replacing them with rampant and sometimes wild speculation. Speculation that is often presented or interpreted as fact.

Confirming facts takes time and resources. The immediacy of internet publishing has taken away the luxury of time and budget; other constraints erode the resources required to even do the work.

News and other sites that cover current events are often faced with a very simple choice:

• Speculate today
• Be correct tomorrow

Getting something out today almost always wins. Accuracy be damned.

Why you and I are part of the problem

Satirical news parody site, The Onion, nailed it with an article, Let Me Explain Why Miley Cyrus’ VMA Performance Was Our Top Story This Morning.

The article is a fictitious “explanation” of why a major news site — CNN.com — highlighted on its home page the antics of the singer at the previous night’s music awards show.

The only thing fictitious about the article is its attribution. Everything else is frighteningly accurate.

It’s all about clicks and page views and time-on-site and advertising revenue and … well, you get the idea.

The fact is simple: you and I are much more likely to click stories about the outrageous antics of a pop singer than we are to click stories about what one might consider “real news,” such as atrocities happening elsewhere in the world.

News sites are simply giving us what we apparently want as measured in clicks.

The same is true for the salacious headlines, fact-free articles, and sensational speculation-as-truth that’s littered all over the internet.

We don’t click on boring, and we don’t fact check anything.

I have no solution, but…

I’m not about to change journalism, or human nature.

People will click on what we’re going to click, and website owners are going to respond as they see fit for their business.

As an information consumer, however, I want you to be aware of two exceptionally important things:

Your decisions and actions drive the internet. You may believe that it’s big (or small) business doing whatever it is they want to make money, but the fact is they can’t do that without you. The more that you visit certain sites, the more you’re implicitly endorsing what they do and how they do it. As a result, they’re going to do more.

Seriously. That’s exactly how it works.

You can’t believe everything you read on the internet. This pains me deeply because while almost everyone says this, it seems like no one acts like they understand it. It’s absolutely amazing the wild and wacky stuff that people will believe if it’s published online. The fact is even those sites that we consider reputable will fall into the trap of publishing inaccurate and misleading information — and yet people believe it all without question.

And that’s what has to change.

You must question everything

This is where I really believe that internet journalism is really letting us down. This is how the internet has broken journalism.

You and I, we have to now do the legwork that we could in the past assume that journalists and authors had at least made an attempt to do themselves.

It’s horrible. It’s awful. It’s frustrating. It shouldn’t have to be this way.

And yet, it is what it is.

You and I must (and I do mean must) take everything that we read online with a grain of salt. Nothing can be believed without question.

You and I must do the job that in the past we might have relied on good journalism to at least begin to do for us: confirm the truth, check sources, clarify statements, and see through the hyperbole.

Of course, the practical reality is that we can’t actually do that for every single thing we encounter. As a result, we develop relationships with sources that we trust — venues that have proven themselves to be honest, accurate, and at least somewhat diligent about presenting truth as truth, speculation as speculation, and avoiding the temptation to do just about anything for a page view.

Naturally, I hope Ask Leo! is one of those sites.

But even for those sites that you trust, you must keep up your guard and do your own due diligence. Accidentally or not, it’s very easy to get it wrong.

And if I ever start posting about the antics of half-naked pop-stars, slap me. Hard.

Originally published at askleo.com on October 19, 2013.