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March, 2024

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Why doesn't good news do better?

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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22671 - Karma: 75,830
So I was reading the latest 'Confessions of a ski bum' piece -

https://www.newschoolers.com/readnews/44686.0/Confessions-of-a-Ski-Bum--Part-5

and I couldn't help myself but notice that this entire series - which is completely awesome - has been eclipsed by articles/threads/whatever about Gus/Miley, Gus/Puppies, etc.

This is a huge trend that has gone on for a while in skiing - and to be fair the rest of the world - where in-depth quality journalism and story telling has an incredibly difficult time getting the exposure it deserves.

Why?

People constantly tell me that they hate the fact that we 'killed news on newschoolers' to which the only response I have is that we had to - in the heyday of news on newschoolers it had dropped to less than 2% of the overall views on the site. Time on page on articles was less than 30 seconds on average. People weren't reading, they were just clicking and scrolling.

Social hates good content. Loves super shitty content.

Why?

So tell me... what is your reason for clicking on the bullshit facebook click crack gossip horseshit, and what the fuck do we do to get more exposure for the real stories that actually matter?
Mar 6 2014 9:58PM
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snowfinder
Posts: 2717 - Karma: 32,924
skiing is now TMZ thats why.
Mar 6 2014 10:00PM
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SKI.ING
Posts: 2695 - Karma: 2,535
Watch Anchorman 2.
Mar 6 2014 10:00PM
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22671 - Karma: 75,830
I actually heard a great podcast where they were basically arguing that life is all about gossip. Gossip in fact is essentially the underpinning of everything.

I hate it... but I think I gossip too.

I mean did you click on the gus/miley shit?
Mar 6 2014 10:16PM
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uyghur
Posts: 993 - Karma: 2,028
It's for the same reason that the national enquirer is still in business, people like to read about gossip and bullshit.
Mar 6 2014 10:18PM
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22671 - Karma: 75,830
So how can we change it?
Mar 6 2014 10:20PM
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Drail
Posts: 14011 - Karma: 10,001
Tl;dr. I've seen this posted in the comments of 'news' articles in NS. People just want to be stimulated on the Internet, if an edit dropped yesterday it's already old news.

It's like back when newspapers were still relevant, I'd think that a large percentage of people would just read the headline, maybe the first paragraph and moved on.
Mar 6 2014 10:21PM
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22671 - Karma: 75,830


So basically the more things change the more things stay the same?

Perhaps we need to write better headlines for our in-depth pieces?

Seriously though... how do we get more people interested in the 'real' stories?
Mar 6 2014 10:24PM
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uyghur
Posts: 993 - Karma: 2,028
We can tar and feather the head of the national enquirer of course!
or maybe good news can be presented in the same way that crappy news is, for example for ski bum confession 5 the title can be: SKIER GETS BORED OF PARK, SKIS POW INSTEAD. DIVORCES WIFE.
Mar 6 2014 10:24PM
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22671 - Karma: 75,830
Dude try sharing that article on your facebook with exactly that title and see what happens.
Mar 6 2014 10:26PM
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timmi
Posts: 12874 - Karma: 3,460
To be completely honest after a long day of work, I really don't want to read anything too in depth. I pretty much head straight to NSG and burn my brain cells down one by one.
Mar 6 2014 10:28PM
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snowfinder
Posts: 2717 - Karma: 32,924
Sure did and I was highly disappointed that it was just a weird teeth pic. I was hoping for some weirder shit like maybe Gus doing hand bras on Miley while her tongue was doing that thing.
Mar 6 2014 10:30PM
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jibbpeter
Posts: 1613 - Karma: 4,083
It really depends on my mood. Sometimes i like to sit down and spend some time reading intresting stuff in the news section, which usually takes up a good ammount of time. But i got to admit, that doesn't happen to often. Why? I don't know why... Sometimes i just feel to bullshit around in the forums, and other times i like to take some time to read good stuff. I also think it's fun to see skiing making the step into the spotlight, and see famous people recognize or sport, which tbh i have never understood have happend before since skiing is so damn awesome. Guess exposure was all it took.

Quality stuff is 10/10 much longer to read... well duh, it's quality, it's supposed to be long. And if you think it's boring, you shouldn't have began to read in the first place.

Gossip stuff is short, and often has something simple and "funny" to say, and therefore more people care to read because it takes like 1 minute to read the whole artice.


tl;dr: Fuck grammar, it's late andi m tired.

Click for larger image

Mar 6 2014 10:35PM
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FUUUCK
Posts: 18426 - Karma: 4,888
The "what's hot" format you guys switched to killed the news. Short articles and headlines get read and voted on faster than long articles and they get amplified by being the on the top content page.
Mar 6 2014 10:38PM
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-WZ-
Posts: 3600 - Karma: 6,581
Idk about you guys, but if i find a really long article that seems interesting, i usually bookmark and read it right before bed or something similar to that. When i first get home usually im just looking forwards to the bullshit of NSG hahaha
Mar 6 2014 10:39PM
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KingGeedorah
Posts: 890 - Karma: 1,576
Maybe compile a weekly, or daily, collection of worthy stories, rather than the other bs that shows up. I guess anybody can do that though, even..... me!
Mar 6 2014 10:41PM
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22671 - Karma: 75,830
I'm telling you, people stopped reading the news a LONG time before we made that change.

We made that change because people stopped reading the news, not the other way around.

Mar 6 2014 11:08PM
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Aomame
Posts: 281 - Karma: 479
Bishop's gotta be right on this one. 1. they have numbers to prove it I'm sure and 2. no one really talked about any of the news on the forums anyway.

The story in the OP is more or less a reskinning of a feeling everyone gets about loads of things. Putting it that way really negates the importance of it but these kinds of things are usually only important to the person who writes them. Of course, if you go through the exact same 'why am i still skiing?' then the article probably resonates with you a lot more. But otherwise, no one really likes having those feelings of 'why am i still doing X' much less reading about them. And the end is binary, he's either gonna quit skiing (X) and do something else, or keep skiing (doing X). What I'd rather read about is what he chooses to do instead of skiing (doing X) since that could be loads of stuff. If he chooses to keep skiing (doing X), good for him, I love skiing (doing X) and would never want to give it up after skiing (doing X) for all my life.


Mar 6 2014 11:39PM
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Sklar
Posts: 8863 - Karma: 31,577
tl;dr


The way people consume media is changing. People don't, or at least think they don't, have time to read big walls of text.

Personally, even with school and all that, I have enough time to sit down and read news, but do I? Not really. I have to be in the right mood to really sit down and get into a good article. It's an ADD culture.
Again, this is from a personal perspective, I'm pretty sick of most of the coverage and news out there. Like the olympics for example, the only articles I read were Ethan's. I read the rest of the headlines and thought "meh. same shit."
The old status quo of news is dead, like Doug said people stopped reading long before the change in NS formats.


IMO, to get people to read the news again, it has to be engaging and fresh (from a new perspective, deeper, etc.). This can be short and sweet articles with a more specific purpose, something fresh and real like Ethan has been doing, or something multi-media engaging (like the Ne York Times Stevens Pass article, that's the real future of news IMO)
Mar 6 2014 11:51PM
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1kewldewd
Posts: 795 - Karma: 1,143
Ironically I almost couldn't make it through the OP because it was too long and in depth. Also many of the posts are too long. You should include TL;DR at the bottom of all the long news articles.
Mar 7 2014 12:41AM
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cwphoto
Posts: 2332 - Karma: 780
this. i think its a lot easier to see puppies and gus and immediately think upvote, while someone might not take the time to read the ski bum article. which by the way is pretty awesome.
Mar 7 2014 12:58AM
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gravel
Posts: 5479 - Karma: 41,493
Sklar hit that nail on the head
Mar 7 2014 1:37AM
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-SnowSnoli-
Posts: 756 - Karma: 1,703
I think you need to seperate the news section for articles written by NS journalists. I have my homepage set on News and latest most the time and still miss good articles. and when i set it to hotest i just get miley bullshit.
Mar 7 2014 1:59AM
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Static
Posts: 8491 - Karma: 4,059
long articles about skiing usually seem pretentious and fluffy.

Ski bum confessions 5 for example does a great job at saying nothing. Oh you moved to revelstoke, and it wasn't as exciting as you thought? oh you were wrong about people wasting their time skiing park?

It's like hearing athlete voiceovers in ski movies, who cares about how special skiing is to someone or that amazing feeling they get or whatever, I want a funny or shocking one liner.
Mar 7 2014 3:14AM
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S.J.W
Posts: 7609 - Karma: 31,182
I can never be fucked to read something, i click on it look at how many words it has and just think fuck it i've read enough today.
Mar 7 2014 3:45AM
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Mag
Posts: 8155 - Karma: 14,809
Didn't click the confessions of a ski bum, but had it had that title I probably would have.


Sklar has it on point really.

Mar 7 2014 3:53AM
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steez_louise
Posts: 112 - Karma: 118
Currently reading the NYTimes Stevens Pass article. This is good stuff. Engaging format is key.

The actual story is equally as important though.

Best piece of news that NS ever put out? Coverage of the Poor Boyz trip to Poland in 2008(?). Everything about it was interesting: the title, the stories, the pictures. And it was a 3-part series, so it kept me coming back for more. It even had non-skiing related content, which kept it fresh too.

(P.S. I looked around for those Poland articles for a while, and couldn't find them. +K for help)
Mar 7 2014 4:29AM
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Zimmy
Posts: 1258 - Karma: -1,327
On the news page, make sure the category for each item is shown. Also some of the items link to another site in a frame. I really dislike the frame, I like knowing which item is a genuine NS article and which is off-site.

Maybe have another part of the site.. Links... but then again, isn't that what the forum is for? Maybe have a new forum called news, and remove the off-site links component of News.

Are all the articles carefully categorized? If an article belongs to two categories, then a tagging system might be better.

I'd really like to see an "images embedded in forums" part of the site. Some of the them are pretty funny. And each post's rank could determine which to float to top.

Finally, a threaded comments system might work for news, with rankings.. a bit like reddit.
Mar 7 2014 7:44AM
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icculus.
Posts: 749 - Karma: 3,963
This.

Im far to lazy to read the whole confessions of a ski bum without a good fap in the middle.
Mar 7 2014 8:03AM
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NH_OPERATOR
Posts: 1070 - Karma: 2,883
This is kind of related, but I wish I could see the metrics on my GTNS articles that the admins could see. I wonder every time I look at my list of articles why some articles do so much better than others for seemingly no reason. For example, my Cranmore and Attitash article put up over 1200 hits but the time I rode Mt. Snow with Ian Compton only got 600? Why is that?  I find it odd that even a running series like mine fails to have consistent numbers.

I do think a big part of the news is that I would guess the majority of people on NS are not here to read news, they are here to watch edits. Anything that doesn't have the film symbol probably gets jumped over without a second thought. I

The other reason i think is that NS is a fast moving site. With dozens of things making the top of the hot page every day, there isnt much time for anything to linger at the top. If you don't visit the page within 48 hours of an article or video being posted, you may never run into it again because it gets pushed into oblivion.
Mar 7 2014 8:23AM
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ANDR01D
Posts: 1181 - Karma: 3,319
Everyone like to look at some mindless shit from time to time, it's entertaining.

That being said, I like serious interviews, especially written interviews because the transcript is crystal clear. The Q&A a while back with Jason Levinthal was my absolute favorite. Everybody gets to know the park & urban skiers, I want to see interviews & stories about the sides of the business I don't know. In-depth stories about the filming/photography side of the business, the design/manufacturing side of the business, and the backcountry chargers will draw me in every time. Now I'm still pretty new here, so maybe there is some of that already. The point I'm trying to get at is that I would almost always rather read about a photographer who lives out of a backpack than Torin's favorite meal number at McDonald's.
Mar 7 2014 8:26AM
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gotti
Posts: 4269 - Karma: 4,548
I for one know that if i click on something i want to read it and 9 times out of 10 i will read the entire thing. I think the real cause of whats happening is that upvotes have an exponential effect. The more something gets upvoted the more it gets upvoted and suddenly its at the top, and I will only see what is put in front of me, thus if something has a faster read/process time it will get upvoted faster and shadow what is beneath it, and I really only read what is put in front of me. I think NS should have staff picks similar to vimeo where if you guys see something that is front page material you can move it up and im sure it will get upvotes. Also, longer news articles should require fewer upvotes to get to the top, as well as user created articles should require fewer votes because thats the kind of stuff we want to promote instead of buzzfeed.

Idk im just brainstorming
Mar 7 2014 8:53AM
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el_mn_op
Posts: 577 - Karma: 1,175
I usually go on NS as a break from homework. I'm not looking to be engaged in some long and in-depth text, because that's the kind of thing I'm trying to get away from by coming onto the site. If a longer or heavier article interests me I will still sometimes read it, but most likely not. I seek out and enjoy surface-level, easy to consume entertainment online because it lets me take a break from the thought-consuming and exhaustive work that I already spend too much time with in real life.

After reading school books and focusing on getting homework and shit done, I come online to satisfy the ADD part of my brain. That's my perspective as a English/History major at least.
Mar 7 2014 9:20AM
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el_mn_op
Posts: 577 - Karma: 1,175
Because studying these topics involves a ton of reading and in-depth engagement with text that I get sick of sometmes
Mar 7 2014 9:27AM
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tomPietrowski
Posts: 7099 - Karma: 17,043
I would love to see ns go more editorial. Ie have an editor who picks there fav news arcticles. It would help weed out all the shit. For example a load of the written stuff here is just awfull. You can tell it's written by people who love te sport but have little writing experience. News needs good writing to be interesting. Look at the bbc article on urban. Yes it was written from a non ski perspective but it went down well even here and that was because it was well written.

If you had some way of filtering all the articles submitted and had a way to promote th stuff tags is worth reading maybe more people would look at it.

But I think the main thing that needs to happen is you guys find some journalists who can write.
Mar 7 2014 9:35AM
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NH_OPERATOR
Posts: 1070 - Karma: 2,883
Considering most of the NS 'Journalists' are doing this out of love for the sport and are not being paid, shitting on their/our writing is not particularly useful. I for example have been doing my blog all season without even thinking I was going to make a dime off of it, and I would think the other new inductees into the journalism program probably had a similar train of thought.

I have heard that pop up several times, people saying a lot of the articles are poorly written and I just do not see it. I read the majority of articles that come up on the site, posted here or otherwise and the seem fine to me. Am I a classically trained writer? No but I would like to think I am no idiot either when it comes to writing. I do not know what people expect out of ski articles. Should I write them as if I am writing a Shakespearean play? With the exception of an occasional spelling error or grammatical inconstancy,  the real articles that are posted on NS seem pretty good 99% of the time to me.
Mar 7 2014 10:25AM
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errrka
Posts: 2261 - Karma: 6,058
I'm thinking that is the whole point of the journalist program. Look for articles written by purple names, those are the up and coming members that have proven to put out some good content.
Mar 7 2014 10:29AM
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tomPietrowski
Posts: 7099 - Karma: 17,043
I'm not trying to shit on you as you say but my point is I want to read stuff from established journalists. I understand there is a learning process and there should always be ways for new and up and comin writers to get exposure. But I would like to see some more established stuff taking the forefront. It could help encourage new writers and give them ideas of what they could change. It's like anything. The standard of anything can only be as good as it's best person. So if we only have am writers it could be harder for the level to rise.

But as I say I agree tht there should be room for all submitted work just mayb a filtering system be implemented so the best stories get to the top. Do this and maybe the stories in general will inprove as people work harder to be a staff pick.
Mar 7 2014 10:34AM
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Byron_tha_gr8
Posts: 4573 - Karma: 14,298
Even the most established writer would not beat out a gus kicks it with miley story.

Also, maybe focus on the element of excitement. The prospect of a once lowly park rat getting balls deep in Hannah Montana is exciting, another "diary of a ski bum" might be very well written and worth reading, but its not catchy. It doesn't make me curious. I havent rad the article but i can already guess its about skiing pow in BC, something about not being part of the real world, probably some shit about money and drail not having enough of it, some summaries of touring/sleeping in tents/driving in snow/general shit backcountry skiers do.

And I've already read about a million blogs, stories, and magazine articles telling me basically the same thing. Goepper using instagram to try to nail 16 year olds is new, fresh and exciting. Maybe not quality, but its a change worth checking out, while ESB's coverage of Sochi was amazing, it didn't appear to be new fresh and exciting from the links that were shared, other than the one of the urban rail. If you read them you know they were all pretty great, but it has to pull me in long before that if you want me to read something that doesnt involve adopting puppies.

Another thing might be the other 50% of the population, the ones with vagina's. If you haven't noticed, there arent a ton here. But there are quite a few more on facebook. A girl, skier or not, is much more likely to click on something a friend shares about Miley Cyrus or some cute olympian adopting puppies or searching for dates than something on skiing pow in the middle of nowhere. This would be less of an issue if there were a fair number of girl skiers who were more "in the know" of the skiing world, but there aren't. This argument would stand for anyone in the general public, but i think it would be more skewed here because there seem to be quite a few girls on the fringe of freeskiing, but not really involved and taking part. There's a lot less guys that fall into that group, its more all or nothing.

Maybe focus titles and content on that new element? Things that matter to you and to most of us can still be exciting. When Chris Davenport did all the 14'ers, it was exciting as fuck to read about.

Well thats all for now, thank Byron later.
Mar 7 2014 11:38AM
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tomPietrowski
Posts: 7099 - Karma: 17,043
I think the guy above has some good points. The news has to be interesting to catch peoples attention. A ski bum article like the guy above points out has been done to death so even if it's good a lot of people may not read it as they feel they have seen it before.

Another point is that news should maybe be news. The last two articles I read and enjoyed were if the sea to sky corridor needs a new resort and what will happen to la grave if the lift is not purchased. Interesting articles neither one directly about skiing but both very interesting for skiing I general. That is the sort of news I would like to see here more.
Mar 7 2014 11:51AM
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Turkelton
Posts: 2829 - Karma: 8,558
Put the upvote button back at the top and watch real and good stuff hit the top as it "takes less work". The news on this site has thousands of views and about 60 upvotes at most because the button is at the bottom, meaning lazy readers disallow interested readers from seeing the uploaded content. If you put it at the top, a few clicks on the UP lets those interested read the whole thing and upvote it as well. It makes a cycle
Mar 7 2014 12:09PM
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Byron_tha_gr8
Posts: 4573 - Karma: 14,298
or modernize your content.
Mar 7 2014 12:14PM
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Sklar
Posts: 8863 - Karma: 31,577
No one is shitting on anything.

Honestly, the majority of writing on the site is poorly written (I'm not excluding my work either). If you don't see that you need to read and write more.
Sure they may be 'good' or passable, but that's why no one reads them, they're not awesome or exciting (except for maybe Ethan's stuff). An article does not have to be "shakespearean" to be good, but there is a difference between mindless stream of consciousness drivel and compelling journalism. I think it's getting better, but it still has a long way to go, and only time, experience and feedback can do that.


Yet that's not even the problem, because people stopped reading news long before members starting being able to upload articles.
Mar 7 2014 12:15PM
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Sklar
Posts: 8863 - Karma: 31,577
Honestly, I don't know how much that would help, if you scroll back through the news, sorted by the number of views, there is nothing (non-olympic related) from 2014 in the first 50 pages, you have to go back pretty far, but not as far, to get original Newschoolers content from 2013, too.
The problem is bigger/different than that.
Mar 7 2014 12:23PM
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Turkelton
Posts: 2829 - Karma: 8,558
Click for larger image
Mar 7 2014 12:24PM
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ABalls
Posts: 2091 - Karma: 3,754
I read almost all of the news articles on the front page but most of the time in school I just dont have the time to sit down and read it.
Mar 7 2014 12:27PM
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trueheads
Posts: 83 - Karma: 252
I heard joss likes cheese doodles, lets make this front page news on CNN!
Mar 7 2014 1:44PM
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Byron_tha_gr8
Posts: 4573 - Karma: 14,298
haha don't feel bad im jsut hatin to hate. Tbh NS seems to be doing news better than any other ski media, but 2 easy changes that i could see helping:

1. Bring back a blog section, some of the "news" is blogging. They are 2 different things, and should be marketed as such.

2. More interesting titles. That fake title i saw there would honestly probably bring in more readers than some soulful deep headline. Why don't you try it with an identical article on the NS FB page? Post it twice at once with 2 different names and see which one does better.
Mar 7 2014 1:52PM
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cydwhit
Posts: 5065 - Karma: 42,823
The blog idea might be good, I feel bad posting my articles in the "news" section even though they have gotten a positive response, a dedicated blog section might encourage that kind of writing.
Mar 7 2014 3:22PM
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NH_OPERATOR
Posts: 1070 - Karma: 2,883
This is how I felt as well. I even contacted Mousseau before posting my first GTNS article because I didnt think it belonged in the news section.
Mar 7 2014 3:47PM
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GayWolf420
Posts: 36687 - Karma: 110,612
people are just generally getting dumber and dumber as time goes on. no one wants to read actual thought provoking content, or content that can teach you a thing or two about something.
Mar 7 2014 6:06PM
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