Most of you probably know, but in the inverted pyramid, journalists give the most important details of an article at the beginning, with lesser details later. But in many modern online posts–especially entertainment news–writers try to make you read as much of the article as possible before providing the key information, even if they have to use very clumsy writing to do it. For instance in stories about a TV series they go paragraphs before they tell you the name of the series the article is about. Here’s the latest one I’ve seen: an article about how the series Raised By Wolves has been canceled where they don’t tell the title until the 4th paragraph:
They’re taking a page from the assholes who “publish” the stories on FB about a diner waitress who got an unexpectedly large tip. There’s the vague headline, then a 50-word biography of the waitress, then a 500-word biography of the tipper, then the reason for the tip, then the size of the tip.
But it still doesn’t make sense. Keeping vital information out of the title: fine. It’s annoying, but I can live with it. But after we’ve already clicked, what difference does it make if the info we’re looking for is in the first paragraph or the last?
I think it’s because some search engines give a preview of the first paragraph. If they put the vital info in the 1st paragraph, then a search engine like Google might betray the info without the reader needing to actually click into the article itself.
I suspect the reason is because of advertisements. They want the reader to scroll all the way through the entire article so as to read all the ads. To do that, you need to put the vital info in the bottom.
Beyond the very good points about more ads, “time spent on page” is a key metric of “engagement”. As a listicle writer, if you wanna look good to your boss you want to ensure your average time-to-read is large.
And screw web sites that don’t include a date on their non-inverted-pyramid articles.
It’s frustrating to search for something, find relevant articles, start reading some “breaking news” article, then start noticing subtle clues such as references to “President Obama” that let you know that the poorly written news story broke fifteen years ago.
This seems to crop up more and more with stuff that really ought to be time sensitive (e.g. searching for stories about yesterday’s storm or the mass pileup on a major highway). And using Google’s search tools to limit to past 24h or past week works sometimes, but web sites lie and say their twenty-year-old article is fresh.
A few years ago I wrote articles for a website that was focused on metrics like clicks and time spent on page. There was an automated SEO (search engine optimization) tool we had to get a high score from before the article could be added to the website.
It was loathsome. It favored dumbing down, short sentences, repetition, and general stupidity. I would start with a coherent, articulate piece that would be assigned a low score; by the time I had revised so that the SEO was high enough, the text was mind-numbingly inane.
On the other hand, the inverted pyramid is not appropriate for all writing. Hard news stories and press releases, sure. But not for features, personal essays, and various other types of material.
Not the same thing, but i get annoyed when articles in the print press have a picture
inset of some person, and don’t say who it is on the first reference to that person.
Any time that crap pops up on one of my feeds, if it’s an option I go to the comments section to spoil the reveal. Most times I find I’m not the first in to plan that, but sometimes I am. (if you ever want to be called “hero” by a bunch of people, that’s definitely one way to do it)
The inverted pyramid was useful for newspaper articles about hard news. It’s terrible for almost anything else. A story about a TV series? No. That’s entertainment, not news. It should be written as entertainment.
Crafting a good lead is hard. I’ve written hundreds of articles and almost always the first paragraph that I thought was a winner winds up being tossed. I had the privilege of time on most of them, so this wasn’t a major issue for me, but internet writing normally has time demands that shoves words out of the computer like grain into a hopper.
Even before clickbait the inverted pyramid was on the wane as journalists started turning news stories into human interest stories. You have a headline like “Local hospital accused of performing unnecessary surgeries” and the first line of the story will be, “Lisa Schmitz was awakened one morning last October by a pain in her leg.”
You apparently didn’t understand the OP. I was ralking about news articles about tv series. Are you saying that an article with the purpose of saying “series x was cancelled” should be written as “entertainment”?
Here are other recent examples from the same site. All of them are stories “series x has been cancelled” (or available). All go through paragraphs of circumlocutions before mentioning the title, which in a well-written story would have been at the beginning. Even if it is a story about an entertainment.
I see your point about them not giving the names until the fourth paragraph.
But these are not reproduced press releases, which too many such articles are. They give background information that will interest and tantalize fans. I’d think that people who go to a site like ScreenGeek appreciate articles by people who are geeking out about relevant works. Not really my style but I can see why they’re written this way.
Also, I’m 99% sure that the writers expected the movies’ name to be in the headlines. Scroll down on those pages and you’ll see examples.
‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Sequel Reportedly In The Works
Exclusive: ‘Hellboy: The Crooked Man’ Actor Jack Kesy Wants To Play Joker Or Gambit
Henry Cavill To Star In ‘Voltron’ Movie
I’m also betting that writers turn in articles and editors put the headlines on them. So the writer would normally expect that the title of the movie would be in big, screaming letters, making any suspense moot. Lack of communication between writers and editors is an age-old problem.
Yeah, ScreenGeek is not a top-flight professional site. I’m less convinced that its writers are the problem, though.
