The Atlantic’s post on Friday about the list of the top New York Times stories of 2013 has prompted some interesting discussions.
The most-read story of the year was a dialect quiz — you answer questions about how you talk, and you’re shown which parts of the country mostly closely match your dialect patterns.
It’s a data-driven interactive quiz based on 350,000 survey responses collected by an NYT graphics editor. It’s a game. It’s not an article.
The Atlantic post says this:
“Think about that. A news app, a piece of software about the news made by in-house developers, generated more clicks than any article. And it did this in a tiny amount of time: The app only came out on December 21, 2013. That means that in the 11 days it was online in 2013, it generated more visits than any other piece.”
A journalist friend of mine expressed dismay that the quiz didn’t answer the why and how of the issue. It lacked context and utility, he argued, and he compared it to a Buzzfeed list.
Here’s what I think: Journalistic standards for importance and excellence can get in the way of providing a product people want to consume and use. Turning the research behind this quiz into a story would be valid and informational. But it’s not the only way.
Continue reading “Why journalists shouldn’t be threatened by the most-viewed NYT story of 2013”