I have touched on this before in this blog. And here is another example of what is wrong with the lack of real journalists working in online "news" environments.
A headline on AOL's home page today reads: "Is Tiger Woods Ready to Quit Golf?" The text below the headline says: "A report has surfaced that wife Elin has given him an ultimatum -- one that might not bode well for his career."
However, when you click on the story you find out that Woods quitting golf is just a rumor and a pretty far-fetched one at that, according to the writer. But in the online news world, the home-page headline and readout served its short-sighted purpose in that it got me to click to the full story, even if it did so by being blatantly misleading.
Unfortunately, AOL isn't the only site guilty of trickery disguised as real news. And just to be clear, I don't usually go to AOL, Yahoo or sites like that for news. However, I am beginning to see newspaper sites doing similar, unethical things in order to drive web traffic. And that's pretty disturbing to a lifelong editor such as myself. Ultimately, I think it will fail from a business standpoint.
My advice to these types of quasi-news web sites would be to hire professional journalists in order to increase credibility. People seeking legitimate news want to believe what they are reading. They don't want to read one thing on a home page and a completely different thing once they drill down into the site. Over the long haul, credibility is more important than tricking people to click headlines that are misleading. Solid, reliable and original content will build traffic, not juvenile gotcha headlines that refer to supermarket tabloid reports.
Update: Reports came out later in the day on numerous web sites stating that Tiger Woods is taking a temporary leave from golf. He's not quitting. I can't really understand why anyone would even speculate that he'd retire at a still relatively young age. Plenty of public figures, including athletes, entertainers and even politicians have been guilty of similar things that are alleged about Woods. Rarely does anyone ever quit over them unless they broke a law and are forced to. The money-making machine that is Tiger Woods will return to golf soon enough. Hopefully, the media won't glorify him quite as much when he gets back on the course. Athletes and others in powerful positions are often arrogant enough to think they can get away with anything and still maintain their public image. Yet few ever get through their various indiscretions without some exposure and scars ... just ask Bill Clinton, Wade Boggs, Gary Hart, Roger Clemens, Koby Bryant and a host of others.
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