Something like a decade ago, Cracked was churning out articles like “5 Reasons Why…” and so on. The “listicle” entered popularity. I know I found the articles engaging and easy to read as a teenager. The early Buzzfeed style of articles were similar, but had less substance. But it caught on. That may have been one origin of how news media are trying to capture and recapture eyeballs. The “listicle” style – oscillating between levels of substance like “20 Things That Will Make You Say NOOOOOOO!” and “6 Reasons to think the Zika Virus Causes Microcephaly" – has been widely adopted by media outlets that probably stuck their noses up at Buzzfeed a few years ago.
Publishers like the New York Times and Vox are familiar with creating articles that distill the most important facts of breaking news or ongoing, complicated events. Sometimes they are numbered and other times sectioned out by topic; sometimes there are self-imposed questions to be answered and other times pages are bathed in links to other pages. And these and other publishers have deemed it reasonable, if not necessary or prudent, to title their articles with references to the quality or quantity of their information: “The Mueller Report Is 448 Pages Long. You Need to Know These 7 Key Things”––maybe that one can be forgiven; “4 key things to know about India’s elections Thursday.”
Publishers have decided, likely for several reasons including the breadth and depth of a topic, that there are times when these titles that directly refer to the information curation process are helpful. It’s true that most people don’t want to read through multiple articles or multiple sources to understand a topic, nor do most people have time. It’s also true that curation has always been a part of the news business. But media organizations have become increasingly willing to acknowledge that they are curating information in their presentation of the news. How do the Times, AP, NBC, or whoever, compete with a ten minute video that supposedly distills current events, or even a 60 second video? The media landscape is now one in which each outlet hurriedly explains why they have the best information, and to do so, they have changed the way that they present their work.
Journalists, editors, and media organizations have always decided what makes it into the papers, what makes it into a segment, and what thread is worth following to its end. One can imagine that process taking place in a newsroom a century and a half ago, as reporters privileged the debate of one law on the Congressional floor over another. That conversation has taken place many times in pitch meetings and in the heads of reporters as they wager that one piece of twine in the water has a fish at the end, and the other a rotting shoe. News at its root naturally decides what is pressing enough to publish.
Aggregation – not to be confused with the creation of encyclopedic knowledge – is perhaps much newer, and has emerged in news and other media consumption. (The quest for an encyclopedia, or the culling of all information has been taken up in varying forms from Diderot to the British Museum.) Merriam-Webster defines an aggregator as “someone or something that gathers together materials from a variety of sources.” Aggregation typically takes its form in algorithms run by Apple’s news application or Google News platform, which are in turn, curated to your own interests. Aggregation extends to academia, where papers take the time to examine other studies on a single given topic, arranging the studies neatly together. Social media aggregates as well, whether it be with hashtags or in subreddits devoted to single topics.
But even with the aid of aggregation and algorithmic curation, there is often too little space to make decisions about what media to consume, much less to parse the noise of media that exists. In January 2016, Pew reported that Wikipedia added over 20,000 articles each month. In May 2016, Robinson Meyer reported how many stories major media organizations produce: the Washington Post produced an average of 500 stories per day; the New York Times produced roughly 150 articles per day, except for Sunday, where around 250 articles were produced, not including graphics, interactives, and blogs; the Wall Street Journal added about 240 stories per day in both their online and print version; in April 2016, between posts and videos, Buzzfeed produced about 222 pieces of content per day.
About 8,500 Tweets are sent every second. Hundreds of hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Netflix users watch about 140 million hours of content per day. Media organizations drop newsletters into your inbox that summarize the day’s most important news. The inundation of audiences is nothing new – in 2008, a Columbia Journalism Review feature discussed news fatigue. We can add media fatigue to the complexion of news fatigue, because as we know, CNN and Fox aren’t just competing against the AP and Bloomberg, but also against “Game of Thrones” and “Keeping up with the Kardashians.” In any case, both networks do their best to put themselves in the running for an Emmy.
Aside from the tradition of legacy news and media outlets that contributes to this cacophony, the Internet is easily the greatest source of much of this clamor. It is also the repository of alternative media that competes for the same eyeballs as legacy media. Twitch, YouTube, Reddit, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and whatever else, are some of the disruptive and lucrative platforms that the likes of the Washington Post and Kim K have to keep up with. And for those my age, who practically, as I like to say, are “from” the Internet, these platforms present ways of living that our parents scorn (video game careers) and can have the tendency of normalizing worldviews previously marginalized and cast out for their lack of proof and bigoted dogma (eugenics). They also have the hopeful effect of connecting smart people with determination to appreciative audiences. And there is hope in a playing field that allows creative and innovative individuals to bring out new ways of understanding the world without traditional gatekeepers beholden to traditional reins of power. But this is a competition, whether anyone likes it or not.
So, in turn, media outlets have adopted already used tactics with slightly different facades to re-cultivate audiences. Of course, it would be mostly incorrect to say that established outlets have adopted the garbage clickbait titling that leverages an algorithm’s whim. And reality television shows have been peddling various forms of garbage without the worst titles, to be frankly anti-analytical about it, for decades. But at a glance of the surface (a title), newsmakers have, at times, adopted an admission that they are curating the news in order to compete with the deluge of new media that often claims to hold unassailable truths.
Some articles that once would have been titled with a concrete explanation and brief overview of a matter at hand, have now expanded or been swapped for ones that are all-encompassing. And the titles exist in the same realm as listicle articles – “Five Things You Need to Know About Today.” And these are reminiscent, if not similar to titling templates that new media organizations and creators adopted over time to get noticed. The implicit connection is that more traditional outlets have admitted, in the titling and structure of these articles, that new media is a force to compete with. And in admitting so, they have adopted similar styles of presentation that approach, but do not reach, “The TRUTH About [Thing]” levels.
These articles have also incorporated aggregation as a main part of their articles. Those especially that are filled with hyperlinks are visibly aggregating and citing. Aggregation has become an essential part of curation, for to know what is important, a writer must know next to everything about a topic. Whereas Reddit or Google news aggregates and curates according to your interest, a specific subject, or sometimes a corrupt interest attempting to manipulate the conversation, these types of articles return the power of aggregation and curation to news organizations and writers in a self-referential style.
The other possibility is that media groups that contribute to noise also agree upon the insurmountable level of noise in media consumption. To cut through, to survive, as the Internet had shattered old prospectuses about how media should work, they must now contribute to the reverberations of Twitter and Facebook, and the masquerading ramblings of those standing on the street corners of the Internet. Indeed, each generation criticizes its progeny for being more “this” or less “that” and that things have changed oh so terribly since the “good ol’ days.” But the media landscape appears to have sparked swift changes in newsrooms and editors’ pens that have a registered effect on gathering a “consumership.”
Aside from the titling that in itself admits to a competitive stance towards new consumption, media organizations have also decided to branch into other digital landscapes. It is much easier to compete with a neighbor on the same platform than to complain in a print article about how much YouTube has damaged the integrity of factual consumption. (I recognize the irony that I am doing something just like that in writing this essay.) The Times has expanded its media offerings from its podcast, “The Daily,” to also include “The Weekly,” a video investigation series that appears on Hulu and FX. In the same vein, Vox has multiple series on YouTube that range from simply being interesting to exceptionally salient to the news cycle.
One issue for these groups – those like Vox that straddle the new media and old media line, and the Times which neatly occupies a legacy media role – is that the alternative and new media types have had a several year head start. And if anything is true of the shifting landscape, it’s that loyalty is difficult to cultivate, but when solidified, can be lasting. It is the kind of impetus in viewers and consumers of media that cuts through the noise. Because people are easier to identify with than organizations and their ideals.
The repackaging of information for easier consumption has in fact become an entire style of presentation. It begs questions of whether the act of aggregating and curating is akin to reporting – perhaps depending on how insulated your audience is – and how new media ultimately continues to rely on traditional forms of reportage. And, in attempting to cut down the noise that riddles our eyes and ears every day, newsmakers are unfortunately contributing to a more frenetic and noisy landscape, which simply forms a feedback loop (sure, maybe pun intended), devolving into iterative lists that compile other lists.
As I’ve also embedded myself into an increasingly noisy life – in terms of media consumption and listening to music several hours a day – I often find myself digging deeper into the noise to get out of it. If its consistency becomes a norm, then like most anything else, I could probably get used to it. Which in turn spurs on sensations of withdrawal from unending consumption, deadens our antennae to sensitivity, and makes silence a dreadfully uncomfortable concoction. Is that the same thing that is happening in the news media landscape, and is aggregation and curation an attempt at a cure or a bandaid?