Appeasing the Google Gods
Howard Kurtz
WashPost
I can no longer file a story in our computer system without filling out a box, a small gray square that may well determine the future of serious journalism.
The box is supposed to contain words and phrases that will help me reel you in. Search has become a journalistic obsession on the Web, and with good reason. Most people don't read publications online, patiently turning from national news to Metro to Style to the sports section. They hunt for subjects, and people, in which they're interested.
Our mission -- and we have no choice but to accept it -- is to grab some of that traffic that could otherwise end up at hundreds of other places, even blogs riffing off the reporting that your own publication has done. If you appease the Google gods with the right keywords, you are blessed with more readers. So carried to a hypothetical extreme, an ideal headline would be, "Sarah Palin rips non-Muslim Obama over mosque while Lady Gaga remains silent."
Every newsroom in the country grapples with these questions, and The Washington Post is no exception.
"There's news we know people should read--because it's important and originates with our reporting--and that's our primary function," says Katharine Zaleski, The Post's executive producer and head of digital news products. "But we also have to be very aware of what people are searching for out there and want more information on...... If we're not doing that, we're not doing our jobs."
(More here.)
WashPost
I can no longer file a story in our computer system without filling out a box, a small gray square that may well determine the future of serious journalism.
The box is supposed to contain words and phrases that will help me reel you in. Search has become a journalistic obsession on the Web, and with good reason. Most people don't read publications online, patiently turning from national news to Metro to Style to the sports section. They hunt for subjects, and people, in which they're interested.
Our mission -- and we have no choice but to accept it -- is to grab some of that traffic that could otherwise end up at hundreds of other places, even blogs riffing off the reporting that your own publication has done. If you appease the Google gods with the right keywords, you are blessed with more readers. So carried to a hypothetical extreme, an ideal headline would be, "Sarah Palin rips non-Muslim Obama over mosque while Lady Gaga remains silent."
Every newsroom in the country grapples with these questions, and The Washington Post is no exception.
"There's news we know people should read--because it's important and originates with our reporting--and that's our primary function," says Katharine Zaleski, The Post's executive producer and head of digital news products. "But we also have to be very aware of what people are searching for out there and want more information on...... If we're not doing that, we're not doing our jobs."
(More here.)
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