Left: The original headline of the NYTimes article on 11 April Right: The way that same article appears in the online NYTimes today. No idea what the story is here...but the headline rewrite is interesting. - ThreadSky

sethcotlar.bsky.social • 3 days ago

Left: The original headline of the NYTimes article on 11 April
Right: The way that same article appears in the online NYTimes today.
No idea what the story is here...but the headline rewrite is interesting.

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Comments

joshfrai.bsky.social•3 days ago

Part of the explanation is simple clickbait - make the headline into a question to grab eyeballs. (They bumped the head down to the photo caption.)

jeanjeanie.bsky.social•3 days ago

BOTHSIDES

mrsmacwasmygma.bsky.social•3 days ago

Follow @nytdiff.bsky.social to catch more changes!

leoglickman.bsky.social•3 days ago

Jesus, books are being banned and the Times is treating it like who the "it" actors are of 2025.

patricvk.bsky.social•3 days ago

One is online, one is in the paper. It's not unusual at all to modify headlines and/or copy for different audiences.

sethcotlar.bsky.social•3 days ago

I encountered this because I'm giving my last lecture in my History of Anti-Democracy in America class today and I wanted to show that stark NYT headline from 11 April. I had to go find a screenshot of it. I'm sure there are reasons why the NYT rewrote the headline, but still, it's now gone online.

rawlers.bsky.social•3 days ago

I know as an academic you cannot conjecture, but I’m willing to say the NYT changed the headline because they want to make the Trump administration look better

lapoodella.bsky.social•3 days ago

I get the physical paper and the electronic version. The differences in the headlines is mind boggling. I have repeatedly complained and asked for the printed headline in the electronic version. The printed one is much more likely to get me interested in reading the entire article. Weird.

palafo.bsky.social•3 days ago

Never going to happen. The digital headline usually comes first and has an each/social aims. Print is written by a different staff. The heads can be vaguer because in theory you have already bought the paper. Different purpose

lapoodella.bsky.social•2 days ago

I actually think the headlines in the paper are more detailed. The headlines in the e-version are more vague. So I don’t bother to read the article in the e-paper. “How the Trump White House Reshapes Media Coverage” makes me want to read the article.

palafo.bsky.social•2 days ago

Sometimes that's true, but not always. But, again, once people have the paper in hand, they tend to read most of the stories. Online, if you don't pull the readers in, they're lost.

lapoodella.bsky.social•1 day ago

They do NOT pull the reader in with the headlines in the NYT.

palafo.bsky.social•3 days ago

*search/social (typo). …. Addendum: Print doesn’t have to worry about getting a Google bot to crawl and surface the story in news or for a BlueSky user to click

dmgold123.bsky.social•3 days ago

are the rules different for the web concerning question heds? we strove to avoid them in print.

lapoodella.bsky.social•2 days ago

Apparently so… according to one person here, the HL in the e-version are more descriptive of the content than the print version. But if you want ppl to read the article, the printed HL is better than the e-version.

palafo.bsky.social•2 days ago

Social media and search requirements swept that rule aside. While it's possible to write a good question headline, in practice this opened the door to lazy ones.

timcatts.bsky.social•3 days ago

Yep, different audiences and different discovery channels. Most likely thing a print NYT reader saw before any given headline was another NYT story. Most likely thing an online reader saw was a push notification, a social site or search results.

Not justification, just perspective.

lapoodella.bsky.social•3 days ago

I go to my app. I don’t read as many articles as I used to because of how the digital news is presented. I read many more articles when I pick up the physical copy and page through it. I look at more ads in the print version than the digital one too.

palafo.bsky.social•2 days ago

That tracks. It's largely a generational change, unfortunately. Print habits are falling away for newspapers and magazines; transition for books is happening more slowly.

palafo.bsky.social•3 days ago

My last decade there was focused on this problem to a large degree. The Times used to have beautiful, poetic headlines with clever word play that were often invisible on the internet, alas. A lost art.

timcatts.bsky.social•3 days ago

Yep, meant to reply to the person you were replying to… obviously you know all this!

palafo.bsky.social•3 days ago

The print headline is reproduced at the bottom for archive purposes, but that doesn’t help you. There is an archive of print pages online too (may cost $). In this case, it’s especially unfortunate. Print head was excellent and better for SEP than yet another ? headline for social audience

saulpanzer.bsky.social•3 days ago

Yes, there are reasons why the NYT rewrote the headline, or why any press outlet waters down their reporting these days

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/01/media/trump-cbs-lawsuit-harris-60-minutes-interview/index.html

maxenswlfr.bsky.social•3 days ago

I remember wanting to use this image in a presentation on contemporary German politics and really struggling since all news sites who used it had removed it. Newspapers have no backbone these days

palafo.bsky.social•3 days ago

Digital headlines often change multiple times, especially if an article has sustained audience. They are trying to goose search and social appeal and maximize readers. There also tends to be a different tone and constraints (number of decks, column width) in print

bigworker.bsky.social•3 days ago

Original version was too evocative and informative, had to change it to something that didn't imply that the book bans were a problem

eoinhiggins.bsky.social•3 days ago

likely as simple as the online one is more likely to get people to click through to find out

lvanant.bsky.social•3 days ago

I grew up in Virginia and when I read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings as an adult, it was the beginning of my realization and being upset at what I had not learned growing up.

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