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by alisonatwork
1383 days ago
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Thank you for responding to this topic, although what you're saying does disappoint me. I've been an on-and-off Reg reader since the Slashdot days, and I loved the style. But, like many UK media outlets in the past few years, there seems to be a push to "globalize" the product - most notably by replacing .co.uk domains with .com, but also in reducing the cynicism and irreverence that used to make UK media worth reading even for people who weren't living in the UK. Nowadays I'm finding it's getting hard to distinguish British outlets from American outlets a lot of the time - presumably because everyone needs to optimize their content to suit the lowest-common-denominator algorithms of US-owned tech giants. I can't really blame you for following suit, but it does contribute to the overall homogenization of the media, in my opinion. |
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Isn't this actually a more general cultural shift. On the societal level, or on the level of the entire developed world. It often feels like people are simply tired of cynicism these days.
Being a trained journalist, I have observed something similar in my own country: former witty, extremely-clever-but-cynical outlets have changed to a more neutral style in recent years. I do think this is an obvious win for journalism, or at least for investigative reporting. They can possibly dig a little deeper this way. More focus on the hard work of bringing serious problems to light, less focus on crafting mean headlines.
Also, as a side note, I'd say it is actually much easier to write a "cynical" headline as compared to one that is not mean, but still playful and multi-layered. IMO cynicism is mostly a low-hanging fruit; which is why this is such a common "closet addiction" in many newsrooms.