Tweets are read 100s or 1000s of times more than the items they link to.
Headlines are read 10s to 100s of times more than the first paragraph of an article.
And, well, that last paragraph of a long article … ? If it is one percent of those seeing the headline, it was a truly well read story.
To give a sense, in one study
roughly six in 10 people acknowledge that they have done nothing more than read news headlines in the past week.
That’s right — 60% of people didn’t go past the headline or the tweet in ‘reading’ when it comes to news.
Thus, headlines and tweets matter.
In Washington, DC, 10,000s (more than 100,000? didn’t seem so but ...) rallied as people spoke from a true podium to speak truth to power, the Lincoln Memorial.
In New York, over 100,000 were in the streets.
Asheville, North Carolina, easily topped 10,000.
Austin, Texas, might just have had the largest political gathering in Texas history.
In Los Angeles, the official count is that 500,000 were out in the streets to state that America is not Trump.
In cities and towns around the nation, pussy hats were out in force on the first day of #TrumpShutdown to state clearly: we are not standing idly by as you damage the nation, that we will rally, we will march, we will register, we will knock on doors, we will mobilize, we will vote, and we will take back American democracy.
In the face of the 100,000s across America, here is how The New York Times (no, this isn’t Fox News, Breitbart, or the Wall Street Journal) headlined their story:
A few days after handing over their editorial page to letters from Trump supporters, a few months after publishing a paean to the normality of Nazis, after a year of publishing story after story seeking to humanized Trump-istas, two years after unending #HillaryEmails coverage and minimizing of Trump’s criminality (and incompetence and racism and immorality and ...), The New York Times is determined to demonstrate that ‘they still don’t get it’ in terms of honest reporting in the time of Trump …
Now, “facts matter” … and, it is true that “thousands of protesters take to the streets”. After all, a million is only a thousand thousands, a billion a million thousands, … So, The Times headline is true even as it is absolutely not truthful.
Take a moment to consider two options:
- “Thousands protested ...:
- “Hundreds of thousands protested ...’
Which catches — demands — your attention more?
When there are perhaps a million out in the streets, which is a more accurate, more truthful description?
This minor transgression, getting a headline wrong, is not an isolated item at The Times. From tweets to articles to publishing Trumpista opeds,
The Times too often normalizes the abnormal, helps give cover to the GOP/Trump kakistocracy (government by the least ethical and least competent of society), and makes it that much harder to resist Trump’s authoritarian tendencies and restore American representative democracy. While The New York Times searches hay stacks for that last Trump supporter,
When it comes to #TrumpShutdown, The Times isn’t avoiding opportunities to lay blame on Democratic Party politicians
This is a quite clear example where New York Times bothsiderism & bending over backwards to mollify the destructive GOP is worsening the situation.:
Laura Clawson, here at Daily Kos, provides a more accurate headline with Hundreds of Women's Marches, hundreds of thousands of marchers show the resistance is going strong
Here, courtesy of Oliver Willis, is a more appropriate title for what happened across American today:
Sticking with Oliver,
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As an aside, going to the marches ‘sign watching’ really is enjoyable. Here are several favorites from #WomensMarchDC.
“Anything you can do, I can do better bleeding ...’ (young women holding)
#Putin grabbed US by the @POTUS.
And, well, considering my core focus, had to share one (of many) focused on the climate.
Highly recommend subir’s diary, from earlier today, How Donald Trump hacked the New York Times. Subir begins:
Donald Trump is a manipulator, as most bullies are. Like all bullies, he looks for weaknesses and exploits them relentlessly. He did this to the New York Times during the presidential campaign. He continues to do so today.
And, then subir then lays out reasons why The Times lays prostrate before the “nearly obese”, “very stable genius” Trump.