Tuesday, September 24, 2013

News sources: please show and allow discretion

This morning with my son in my lap I briefly accessed my favorite news website. And was instantly disturbed by its main headline. Struggling to get it out of my mind...

I hope someone in the news media is reading this. Please show some discretion in what you put in your headline, or in the short blurb below it. Unsuspecting viewers like me who would never click on such disturbing news don't even get a chance to make that choice and walk away. Its right there staring us in the face...on websites that overall, we trust.

There are millions of viewers who would read such stuff and not be bothered by it. Many times its me too. Yet I'm not sure why this particular item disturbed me, which is the problem. My only choices are to live with the possibility that this may happen unpredictably, or wean myself off the website totally. I don't like either option: I'm sure the news media don't like them either.

We know advertising is important, and traffic is important to sustain it. But it is unbecoming of someone aiming to be a respectable source of news.

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