• ChihuahuaOfDoom@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    255
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    7 months ago

    I’m getting really tired of the word slammed, maybe writers need to pick up a thesaurus (it’s a dinosaur that knows a lot of words).

    • Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      83
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      7 months ago

      I quite like it because you can spot shitty journalism from a mile away and not click the link

    • ramirezmike@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      48
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      7 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.

      • theluddite@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        24
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        7 months ago

        Your comment perfectly encapsulates one of the central contradictions in modern journalism. You explain the style guide, and the need to communicate information in a consistent way, but then explain that the style guide is itself guided by business interests, not by some search for truth, clarity, or meaning.

        I’ve been a long time reader of FAIR.org and i highly recommend them to anyone in this thread who can tell that something is up with journalism but has never done a dive into what exactly it is. Modern journalism has a very clear ideology (in the sorta zizek sense, not claiming that the journalists do it nefariously). Once you learn to see it, it’s everywhere

        • ramirezmike@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          7 months ago

          yeah, unfortunately they need to make money to exist. And that creates all sorts of incentives that aren’t great. I still like journalism and think it’s an important part of a working society, but I decided pretty quickly after studying it that I didn’t want to be part of it

      • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        7 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
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          7 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.

    • slaacaa@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      Angry reader slammed article due to a word in its title - you might be surprised to find out which