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Investigating how the New York Times A/B tests their headlines

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Re: Investigating how the New York Times A/B tests their headlines

#61

Post by tootie »

JasonFruit wrote: post #6

Should a news source be optimizing for engagement, or for accuracy in communicating facts? I understand it's a business, but it's analogous to a bakery that labels all its goods as its best-selling items, only to confuse and disappoint the buyer when they open the box and find something different inside. It may sell that product that time, but it goes against the purpose of the organization as a whole, and doesn't se…

It's not an either/or. I work at a place that produces serious news. User engagement pays the bills and it also gets vital news in front of more eyes. Summing up a complex story into one sentence that convinces a reader to click and learn more is an art unto itself.

Re: Investigating how the New York Times A/B tests their headlines

#62

Post by wp381640 »

mxcrossr wrote: post #52
JasonFruit wrote: post #6

Should a news source be optimizing for engagement, or for accuracy in communicating facts? I understand it's a business, but it's analogous to a bakery that labels all its goods as its best-selling items, only to confuse and disappoint the buyer when they open the box and find something different inside. It may sell that product that time, but it goes against the purpose of the organization as a whole, and doesn't se…

If people don’t like click bait I recommend not using news aggregators that only show the headline and are curated based on the votes of users who don’t read the articles!

You know of an aggregator that shows the actual headlines? The ones I read use a usually poorly editorialised headline created by the user.

Re: Investigating how the New York Times A/B tests their headlines

#63

Post by lwf »

jordan_curve wrote: post #58
monch1962 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It _usually_ makes sense to optimise for engagement, particularly in the US where there's no state-funded media outlet (cue discussion about socialism that will be ignored). The UK has the BBC, Australia has the ABC, and both are state funded media outlets that aren't (at least overtly) driven by views. I'm sure their funding largely depends on how many people are consuming their product, but it's not as though some…

There’s absolutely state-funded media in the U.S. It just doesn’t encompass as much as those in the UK or Australia. C-Span is a good example.

The Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network[1] isn't publicly funded, no.

PBS, NPR, and, via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting[2], lots of individual, independent local radio and television stations.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-SPAN [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_for_Public_Broadca...

Re: Investigating how the New York Times A/B tests their headlines

#64

Post by asdfaoeu »

awhitby wrote: post #30

This is interesting but unless I missed it the author doesn't really explain why they believe they observe all A/B tests. They kind of assume that the randomization is over time (so every reader within a window sees the same headline, and then it changes) rather than within cohorts at a fixed time. But the quote included suggests the NYT does do the latter: "Half of readers will see one headline, and the other half w…

In addition, there's only one case too where it changes back to the original and that's a minor In, in change.

Edit: The only example of clickbait here is OP's title.

Re: Investigating how the New York Times A/B tests their headlines

#66

Post by spoonjim »

selestify wrote: post #41
1stcity3rdcoast wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have journalists ever controlled or written their own headlines? I don't think this is a change from any point in newspaper history.

Why has it been historically separated like this?

Two reasons: the headline writers need to know exactly how many characters to use, as part of the prepress process, right in the layout room, while the journalists are out in the field, and 2) headline writing is its own skill (especially for tabloid headlines).

Re: Investigating how the New York Times A/B tests their headlines

#67

Post by clairity »

lwf wrote: post #63
jordan_curve wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s absolutely state-funded media in the U.S. It just doesn’t encompass as much as those in the UK or Australia. C-Span is a good example.

The Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network[1] isn't publicly funded, no. PBS, NPR, and, via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting[2], lots of individual, independent local radio and television stations. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-SPAN [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_for_Public_Broadca...

npr gets like 2% of its funding from public sources, despite being national public radio. they're as beholden to moneyed and corporate interests as nytimes, and as partisan and outrage-oriented too. i stopped donating years ago.

Re: Investigating how the New York Times A/B tests their headlines

#68

Post by clairity »

motohagiography wrote: post #4

Valuable anecdata. News is defined by conflict, (literally, no conflict = not news) and this shows how headlines that express the most conflict get the most clicks. The integrity issues come up when even though the facts reported are real, the conflict that frames them is manufactured - and this is why people reject news. They don't reject it because of fake facts, they reject it because of fake conflict. When I want…

it's not simply conflict, but value-laden judgement and manipulative framings to try to coerce, not invite, agreement.

Re: Investigating how the New York Times A/B tests their headlines

#69

Post by CarVac »

mxcrossr wrote: post #52
JasonFruit wrote: post #6

Should a news source be optimizing for engagement, or for accuracy in communicating facts? I understand it's a business, but it's analogous to a bakery that labels all its goods as its best-selling items, only to confuse and disappoint the buyer when they open the box and find something different inside. It may sell that product that time, but it goes against the purpose of the organization as a whole, and doesn't se…

If people don’t like click bait I recommend not using news aggregators that only show the headline and are curated based on the votes of users who don’t read the articles!

Sounds like someone needs to make an aggregator that shows only brief auto-generated summaries, no headlines or images.

Re: Investigating how the New York Times A/B tests their headlines

#70

Post by taude »

tootie wrote: post #61
JasonFruit wrote: post #6

Should a news source be optimizing for engagement, or for accuracy in communicating facts? I understand it's a business, but it's analogous to a bakery that labels all its goods as its best-selling items, only to confuse and disappoint the buyer when they open the box and find something different inside. It may sell that product that time, but it goes against the purpose of the organization as a whole, and doesn't se…

It's not an either/or. I work at a place that produces serious news. User engagement pays the bills and it also gets vital news in front of more eyes. Summing up a complex story into one sentence that convinces a reader to click and learn more is an art unto itself.

Except most readers don't go on to actually read much of the article. One of the problems I have with NYTimes (and others) is that the contents of an article, especially if you read the full story, are often times quite different than the assumption the headlines is implying. Afterall, who really has 20 minutes to spend long-form reading a single article? Better for the publication to just tell you what you need to think with a simple 10 syllable headline. (I'm joking here, but think it's a valid observation on others around me consuming the media).

The other problem I have, and why I stopped subscribing to them was their app was terrible and mostly only promoted opinion pieces to me. In fact, I'd love the OP of the story to study how many of the top 10 articles are opinion pieces at any piece of time.

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