The dumbest Stuff or Herald headlines (& other news media)

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#3116883 16-Aug-2023 18:58

JimmyH:

It's lazy journalism, producing quick valueless filler with minimal effort. The Herald doesn't have a monopoly on it. A while ago Stuff seemed to be running a whole series of articles doing this with random Reddit threads. "User Kiwi123 was shocked to hear that [....] and commented [....]"

In Australia, News Corp has admitted they use ChatGPT to create some of those articles, and use fake author bylines. They said this as if they were proud of it.

7NEWS also has a habit of running hundreds of stories a day about how (insert suburb) housewife is AMAZED at this (insert price point) (insert noun) available at Kmart (always Kmart). Along with a hard-to-swallow disclaimer that they were not paid for the article.

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#3116917 16-Aug-2023 21:08

Search for 12-year-old Auckland girl, believed to be with older male.

Which should read "Search for 12-year-old Auckland girl, believed to be with one of approximately 40% of the population of New Zealand". Is it her 13-year-old boyfriend? Her dad who's taken her camping? The creepy 40-year-old guy she met on the Internet? Her brother who's taken her to see their mates down country? And if it is the creepy 40-year old, does that mean we need to keep a sharp lookout for anyone over the age of 12 who's male and report them to the police?

"Search for 8-year-old Auckland boy, believed to be with older male". It's OK, Ben's dad has just taken him to see whatever dinosaur film is playing at the moment, but what a great clickbait headline it makes if you don't mention that bit.

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#3116919 16-Aug-2023 21:12

@neb you missed this bit

Police believe Maria is most likely with and older male in the West Auckland, or Auckland CBD area, they said.

gzt

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#3116923 16-Aug-2023 22:09

neb: Search for 12-year-old Auckland girl, believed to be with older male.

It is an entirely appropriate headline.

That's likely to be all the information police provided to media at this point. Clearly there are concerns for her well being which could easily be about attending school regularly and getting breakfast and dinner on time.

I'm glad you posted that actually. Partner and I just had a discussion about two people we passed on the road this evening.

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#3116926 16-Aug-2023 22:18

RunningMan:
@neb you missed this bit

Police believe Maria is most likely with and older male in the West Auckland, or Auckland CBD area, they said.

That doesn't change the headline in any way, could still be her dad, her brother, her boyfriend, some random creep...

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#3116927 16-Aug-2023 22:19

JimmyH: It's lazy journalism, producing quick valueless filler with minimal effort. The Herald doesn't have a monopoly on it. A while ago Stuff seemed to be running a whole series of articles doing this with random Reddit threads. "User Kiwi123 was shocked to hear that [....] and commented [....]"

I've noticed very little of that on Stuff lately. There seems to be an occasional small burst now and then.

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#3116932 16-Aug-2023 22:51

JimmyH: It's lazy journalism, producing quick valueless filler with minimal effort. The Herald doesn't have a monopoly on it.

More accurately, those stories are a free part of the service. Many people find value in it. The headlines are 95% of the time so so obvious and easy to avoid if you're not interested in those stories. Don't click. I admit to some annoyance when I'm not paying attention.. and then I've clicked one without thinking.

I expect the click rates on some of those are incredibly high when compared to an absolutely essential local democracy story about kerb height. Those clicks in small part fund the excellent reporting service the vast majority of users are getting absolutely free.

Personally I think this phase is still a golden age of high quality journalism easily accessible to anyone who wants to click in the right place. Maybe the peak was around 2005 when there was hardly any ads and an explosion of content and paywalls hardly existed. It's still pretty damn good now.

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#3116941 16-Aug-2023 23:43

gzt:
neb: Search for 12-year-old Auckland girl, believed to be with older male.

It is an entirely appropriate headline.

That's likely to be all the information police provided to media at this point. Clearly there are concerns for her well being which could easily be about attending school regularly and getting breakfast and dinner on time.

I'm glad you posted that actually. Partner and I just had a discussion about two people we passed on the road this evening.

That said, I do expect there is some additional concern in this case at this time.

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#3117119 17-Aug-2023 12:25

The Herald story has additional information at this time

“Police believe Maria is most likely with her older boyfriend in the West Auckland or Auckland CBD area,” police said.

The article also includes some additional background and previous known locations. No details are provided on the additional concerns. Imo most people will guess there are additional concerns because you don't see this kind of article everyday. Presumably police have good operational reasons not naming those at the present time.

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#3117123 17-Aug-2023 12:31

gzt: The Herald storyhas addition information at this time

“Police believe Maria is most likely with her older boyfriend in the West Auckland or Auckland CBD area,” police said.

The article also includes some additional background and previous known locations.

So it was one of the least concerning scenarios rather than the implied child-kidnapping-pedophile-blood-drinking-adrenochrome-hillary-clinton-panic one... just that simple "older boyfriend" rather than "older man" completely changes things.

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#3117200 17-Aug-2023 14:45

neb:
RunningMan:

@neb you missed this bit

That doesn't change the headline in any way, could still be her dad, her brother, her boyfriend, some random creep...

No suggestion it changes anything. Just a comment that there was even more wrong with the report than you had posted about.

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#3117310 17-Aug-2023 20:48

The Stuff story has new info and an updated headline:

Missing 12-year-old makes contact with family, is in company of adult

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#3118382 21-Aug-2023 08:48

Not a headline, but a whole newsprint page!
Somehow Stuff managed to duplicate an entire page in the print edition of Saturday's "The Post". Apart from the page number at the top, page A16 was entirely duplicated on page A17

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#3118590 21-Aug-2023 14:22

Fat Bottomed Girls cut from Queen’s greatest hits to appease younger audience

(Daily Telegraph UK, via NZ Herald)

The article doesn't say anything about how removing the song would appease a younger audience. The song, IMO, presents a pretty positive view of fat bottomed girls. I thought a positive body image was what were were meant to focus on, and not the obvious health issues associated with obesity? Or, is it to appease the girls with flat bottoms?

There are already several releases of Queens Greatest Hits, with slight variations on song content. While this may be the first to omit this particular song, there doesn't appear to be any official comment on why it was removed, let alone any evidence in support of it being for a younger audience.

As for Yoto, Techmoan might as well cover this failed 'format' now.

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#3118607 21-Aug-2023 14:25

SirHumphreyAppleby:
Fat Bottomed Girls cut from Queen’s greatest hits to appease younger audience

There are already several releases of Queens Greatest Hits, with slight variations on song content. While this may be the first to omit this particular song, there doesn't appear to be any official comment on why it was removed, let alone any evidence in support of it being for a younger audience.

Anyone want to leave a tape in their car for a fortnight and let us know whether it contains Fat Bottom Girls? I think that would provide the definitive answer.

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