Dilbert: Airplane Screws
https://www.reddit.com/r/dilbert/comments/1ax8hzl/dilbert_reborn_february_22nd_2024_posted_for_free/

Oh no, the problem can get worse.

Lynn

In article <ur89sb$2d7r$1@dont-email.me>,
Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>Dilbert: Airplane Screws
>
>https://www.reddit.com/r/dilbert/comments/1ax8hzl/dilbert_reborn_february_22nd_2024_posted_for_free/
>
>Oh no, the problem can get worse.
>
>Lynn

They're screwed all right.
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

On 2024-02-22 20:12:59 +0000, Lynn McGuire said:
>
> Dilbert: Airplane Screws
>
> https://www.reddit.com/r/dilbert/comments/1ax8hzl/dilbert_reborn_february_22nd_2024_posted_for_free/
>
>
> Oh no, the problem can get worse.
>
> Lynn

It does happen. News just been posted at Jalopnik.com ...

Passengers Watch In Horror As Plane Wing Disintegrates Around Them
Passengers onboard a Boeing 757 reported seeing a section of the
plane's wing disintegrate as it flew to Boston

<https://jalopnik.com/passengers-watch-in-horror-as-plane-wing-disintegrates-1851278330>

The usual media attention-grabbing sensationalist headline of course.
The wing did not "disintegrate" at all. It was simply one of the wing
flaps which must have had a bird strike and was badly damaged, but
there was no danger to the plane or passengers.

On 2/22/2024 3:57 PM, Your Name wrote:
> On 2024-02-22 20:12:59 +0000, Lynn McGuire said:
>>
>> Dilbert: Airplane Screws
>>
>> https://www.reddit.com/r/dilbert/comments/1ax8hzl/dilbert_reborn_february_22nd_2024_posted_for_free/
>>
>> Oh no, the problem can get worse.
>>
>> Lynn
>
> It does happen. News just been posted at Jalopnik.com ...
>
>    Passengers Watch In Horror As Plane Wing Disintegrates Around Them
>    Passengers onboard a Boeing 757 reported seeing a section of the
>    plane's wing disintegrate as it flew to Boston
> <https://jalopnik.com/passengers-watch-in-horror-as-plane-wing-disintegrates-1851278330>
>
>
> The usual media attention-grabbing sensationalist headline of course.
> The wing did not "disintegrate" at all. It was simply one of the wing
> flaps which must have had a bird strike and was badly damaged, but there
> was no danger to the plane or passengers.

This was a local story for me, so there was video on the news.

It looked like the outer skin on the slat at the front of the wing was
peeling off in the wind. It was gone over several feet of slat, so I
don't know if a birdstrike was involved.

Unfortunately, the way the internet is monetized with ads means that
every link becomes clickbait, trying to force you to click through to
find out what its really about. You also see this on most US TV news,
with teasers of what's coming broadcast to make you sit through
minutes of ads for the ten seconds of data you're really after.

Print media avoid this, since you've already bought the paper, and
its ads, when you read the story. "Don't bury the lede" is the
slogan of good print journalism - give the important stuff right
at the beginning of the story. Internet and TV news bury the
lede to the maximum extent possible.

On TV, I handle this by recording the 90 minutes of news I watch
each evening, and not starting watching until 20 minutes into the first
show. This lets me blast through ads, teasers, redundant weather
reports and sports garbage with 30 second skips. Its a satisfying.

pt

On 2/22/2024 5:14 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
> Unfortunately, the way the internet is monetized with ads means that
> every link becomes clickbait, trying to force you to click through
> to find out what its really about. You also see this on most US TV
> news, with teasers of what's coming broadcast to make you sit
> through minutes of ads for the ten seconds of data you're really
> after.
>
> Print media avoid this, since you've already bought the paper, and
> its ads, when you read the story. "Don't bury the lede" is the slogan
> of good print journalism - give the important stuff right at the
> beginning of the story. Internet and TV news bury the lede to the
> maximum extent possible.

ISTM that these problems have crept into print media as well. We still
get a daily paper (and the NYT in print on Sundays), which is
unfortunately part of Gannett. There's been an increase in
sensationalized headlines, possibly in the belief that this will help
slow down the decline in subscriptions. (They're certainly not
retaining subscribers for timely news, as they appear to go to press
well before midnight the day before, and often splash a story on their
front page that was on their mediocre website three days before.)

I ascribe most of the remaining mismatch between headlines and content
to lack of staff, which breeds sloppy writing and absent editing.

--
Mark Jackson - https://mark-jackson.online/
I have tried to bring scientific thinking to literary
criticism, and there's been very little gratitude for this.
- Kurt Vonnegut

On 2024-02-23 01:47:45 +0000, Mark Jackson said:

> On 2/22/2024 5:14 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
>> Unfortunately, the way the internet is monetized with ads means that
>> every link becomes clickbait, trying to force you to click through
>> to find out what its really about. You also see this on most US TV
>> news, with teasers of what's coming broadcast to make you sit
>> through minutes of ads for the ten seconds of data you're really
>> after.
>>
>> Print media avoid this, since you've already bought the paper, and its
>> ads, when you read the story. "Don't bury the lede" is the slogan
>> of good print journalism - give the important stuff right at the
>> beginning of the story. Internet and TV news bury the lede to the
>> maximum extent possible.
>
> ISTM that these problems have crept into print media as well. We still
> get a daily paper (and the NYT in print on Sundays), which is
> unfortunately part of Gannett. There's been an increase in
> sensationalized headlines, possibly in the belief that this will help
> slow down the decline in subscriptions. (They're certainly not
> retaining subscribers for timely news, as they appear to go to press
> well before midnight the day before, and often splash a story on their
> front page that was on their mediocre website three days before.)
>
> I ascribe most of the remaining mismatch between headlines and content
> to lack of staff, which breeds sloppy writing and absent editing.

The sensationalist headlines began with the printed newspaper, long
before TV, radio, or internet even existed. They did it to get you to
buy their newspaper rather than a competitor's newspaper. It still
continues now, especially (but not solely!) in the tabloid press.

On Feb 22, 2024, Mark Jackson wrote
(in article <l3qbq2Fd9ttU1@mid.individual.net>):

> On 2/22/2024 5:14 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
> > Unfortunately, the way the internet is monetized with ads means that
> > every link becomes clickbait, trying to force you to click through
> > to find out what its really about. You also see this on most US TV
> > news, with teasers of what's coming broadcast to make you sit
> > through minutes of ads for the ten seconds of data you're really
> > after.
> >
> > Print media avoid this, since you've already bought the paper, and
> > its ads, when you read the story. "Don't bury the lede" is the slogan
> > of good print journalism - give the important stuff right at the
> > beginning of the story. Internet and TV news bury the lede to the
> > maximum extent possible.
>
> ISTM that these problems have crept into print media as well. We still
> get a daily paper (and the NYT in print on Sundays), which is
> unfortunately part of Gannett. There's been an increase in
> sensationalized headlines, possibly in the belief that this will help
> slow down the decline in subscriptions. (They're certainly not
> retaining subscribers for timely news, as they appear to go to press
> well before midnight the day before, and often splash a story on their
> front page that was on their mediocre website three days before.)

I used to work for a newspaper. The first (usually the only) edition had to
be done in Editorial by 10:30. Editorial would send copy to Pre-Press.
Pre-Press would burn film and then burn plates from the film, and hand the
plates to Press. Press would load up a five-ton roll of newsprint, slap a few
55-gallon drums of ink into the system, and crank. The plates were good for
50,000 to 75,000 impressions, then Press needed new plates. If something
important happened, Editorial would change the front page, or, usually, the
sports front page, Pre-Press would burn new new film and new plates, and
drive on. That’s the second edition. If nothing important happened,
Pre-Press would burn plates from the old film, repeat as necessary to get 500
to 550 thousand copies out the door. If the first edition wasn’t on the
trucks for delivery to remote areas by 11:00 pm, we were late, and there
would be lots of screaming in the morning meeting.

Parts of the daily paper might be sent to plates days in advance. This would
include full-page or multi-page ads, the holy grail of newspaper advertising
guys. The Sunday paper would start printing on Wednesday; by Saturday night
usually just the front page and the sports was left. Have a look at your
local Sunday paper; count the full-page, double-page, and, if the ad gods
have smiled, four-page ads. All of those would be on plates and often on
newsprint by Thursday. Things like the TV guide and the ‘magazine’ would
be on paper by Friday at the latest, stacked up to be inserted when the rest
of the paper was printed. If some department store was having an
extra-special sale, there might be an eight-page advertising insert. (Note
that it’s been 30 years, things have changed, what’s a ‘department
store’?)

The sports guys were the bane of Pre-Press and Press’s existence, they
would hold for late scores, and God help us if there was a Test series going
on in India, Pakistan, or much worse, Australia or New Zealand. There would
be multiple editions to try to keep up. Same kind of thing if the World Cup
was being played in Europe or Asia.

Modern imagesetters bypass the film step and print straight to plates. If
everything is working properly, one Pre-Press guy can burn all the plates for
the paper in under two hours. If things are not working properly (the usual
state) Pre-Press will start burning at 4:00 pm or earlier and might be late,
causing Press to be late, causing the delivery trucks to be late, causing
screaming in the morning meeting. It would get worse if Editorial changed the
copy after film and/or plates had already been burned, causing Pre-Press to
toss plates and Press to junk printed pages.

It could be worse. It could be assembling the copy using a copy stick and
individual letters. Mirror-reversed. It still ain’t easy to get a paper out
the door.
>
>
> I ascribe most of the remaining mismatch between headlines and content
> to lack of staff, which breeds sloppy writing and absent editing.

Mostly they’re under serious time pressure. If Editorial is late,
everything is late. Regular columns are ready to roll days in advance, but
current news must be updated Right Now. Especially sports. It’s not so much
the actual writing, it’s using Quirk Xcess or Adumbe InStupid to move stuff
around on the pages so that everything fits, kicking a copy to the mono laser
if a black-and-white page or a copy to the color laser (the incredibly
expensive color laser) if a color page to make sure that everything works
(it’s amazing how many errors are invisible on screen but are glaringly
obvious on paper) and then sending the completed copy to Pre-Press.
Black-and-white pages are one page of film ($3/foot). Single-color pages are
two pages of film. Full-color pages are four pages of film. Each page of film
gets its own plate. The imagesetter (in our case, the $150,000 imagesetter; a
fast imagesetter would have cost considerably more) moves slowly. Pre-Press
has to develop the film, then use it to burn plates. The plate-maker is
slower than the imagesetter. Note that the film developer and the plate-maker
were free... if we bought film and plates and chemicals from that vendor. And
we had to have a service come in and collect used chemicals; there’d be,
for example, silver in the water chemicals, but more important there’d be
nitric acid and various cynides. Just pouring that stuff down the drain was
Not A Good Idea. (There’s a reason why making plates is called burning
them.) Pre-Press was supposed to wear protective aprons and gloves and such,
but you could usually tell the pre-press guys by the holes in their jeans and
the discoloration of their hands. You had to stop burning film every now and
again to remove the old chemicals. And, yes, the film developer was in the
dark room. Film had to be transported to the dark room in a container, taken
out of the container, fed into the developer, chemicals added as necessary. A
roll of film was 300 feet, a.k.a. $900. Pre-press would eat multiple rolls
per day. God help you if you slipped up and exposed film to light.

Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> writes:
>On 2024-02-23 01:47:45 +0000, Mark Jackson said:
>
>> On 2/22/2024 5:14 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
>>> Unfortunately, the way the internet is monetized with ads means that
>>> every link becomes clickbait, trying to force you to click through
>>> to find out what its really about. You also see this on most US TV
>>> news, with teasers of what's coming broadcast to make you sit
>>> through minutes of ads for the ten seconds of data you're really
>>> after.
>>>
>>> Print media avoid this, since you've already bought the paper, and its
>>> ads, when you read the story. "Don't bury the lede" is the slogan
>>> of good print journalism - give the important stuff right at the
>>> beginning of the story. Internet and TV news bury the lede to the
>>> maximum extent possible.
>>
>> ISTM that these problems have crept into print media as well. We still
>> get a daily paper (and the NYT in print on Sundays), which is
>> unfortunately part of Gannett. There's been an increase in
>> sensationalized headlines, possibly in the belief that this will help
>> slow down the decline in subscriptions. (They're certainly not
>> retaining subscribers for timely news, as they appear to go to press
>> well before midnight the day before, and often splash a story on their
>> front page that was on their mediocre website three days before.)
>>
>> I ascribe most of the remaining mismatch between headlines and content
>> to lack of staff, which breeds sloppy writing and absent editing.
>
>The sensationalist headlines began with the printed newspaper, long
>before TV, radio, or internet even existed. They did it to get you to
>buy their newspaper rather than a competitor's newspaper. It still
>continues now, especially (but not solely!) in the tabloid press.
>

One word. Hearst.

They do have a name for that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

WolfFan <akwolffan@zoho.com> writes:
>On Feb 22, 2024, Mark Jackson wrote
>(in article <l3qbq2Fd9ttU1@mid.individual.net>):
>
>> On 2/22/2024 5:14 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
>> > Unfortunately, the way the internet is monetized with ads means that
>> > every link becomes clickbait, trying to force you to click through
>> > to find out what its really about. You also see this on most US TV
>> > news, with teasers of what's coming broadcast to make you sit
>> > through minutes of ads for the ten seconds of data you're really
>> > after.
>> >
>> > Print media avoid this, since you've already bought the paper, and
>> > its ads, when you read the story. "Don't bury the lede" is the slogan
>> > of good print journalism - give the important stuff right at the
>> > beginning of the story. Internet and TV news bury the lede to the
>> > maximum extent possible.
>>
>> ISTM that these problems have crept into print media as well. We still
>> get a daily paper (and the NYT in print on Sundays), which is
>> unfortunately part of Gannett. There's been an increase in
>> sensationalized headlines, possibly in the belief that this will help
>> slow down the decline in subscriptions. (They're certainly not
>> retaining subscribers for timely news, as they appear to go to press
>> well before midnight the day before, and often splash a story on their
>> front page that was on their mediocre website three days before.)
>
>I used to work for a newspaper. The first (usually the only) edition had to
>be done in Editorial by 10:30. Editorial would send copy to Pre-Press.
>Pre-Press would burn film and then burn plates from the film, and hand the
>plates to Press. Press would load up a five-ton roll of newsprint, slap a few
>55-gallon drums of ink into the system, and crank. The plates were good for
>50,000 to 75,000 impressions, then Press needed new plates. If something
>important happened, Editorial would change the front page, or, usually, the
>sports front page, Pre-Press would burn new new film and new plates, and
>drive on. That’s the second edition. If nothing important happened,
>Pre-Press would burn plates from the old film, repeat as necessary to get 500
>to 550 thousand copies out the door. If the first edition wasn’t on the
>trucks for delivery to remote areas by 11:00 pm, we were late, and there
>would be lots of screaming in the morning meeting.

One of my cousins was Production Manager at a Dow Jones (WSJ) plant (in Palo Alto)
in the 90's. I used to stop by in the evenings during the production run.
Those were the days when they were converting from manual paste-up to
digital page layout. The one star edition printing started about 7:00pm
(so they could get them on an evening flight to Hawaii), and they'd update
the front page a couple times during the run (usually finishing with a
three-star headline). The plates for local paste-up were done via
film, the remaining pages were sent from Ma. via C-band to a laser printer that
exposed the plate and a subsequent chemical bath cleared the non-exposed
regions.

I still have a pristene plate for January 17, 1991, where the headline is
"Waves of U.S. Planes Attack IRAQ as war breaks out in the Persian Gulf"

I have a couple of double-truck plates containing adverts as well.

The Palo Alto printing plant closed a couple of decades ago.

On 2/23/2024 12:14 AM, Your Name wrote:
> On 2024-02-23 01:47:45 +0000, Mark Jackson said:
>
>> On 2/22/2024 5:14 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
>>> Unfortunately, the way the internet is monetized with ads means that
>>> every link becomes clickbait, trying to force you to click through
>>> to find out what its really about. You also see this on most US TV
>>> news, with teasers of what's coming broadcast to make you sit
>>> through minutes of ads for the ten seconds of data you're really
>>> after.
>>>
>>> Print media avoid this, since you've already bought the paper, and
>>> its ads, when you read the story. "Don't bury the lede" is the slogan
>>> of good print journalism - give the important stuff right at the
>>> beginning of the story. Internet and TV news bury the lede to the
>>> maximum extent possible.
>>
>> ISTM that these problems have crept into print media as well.  We
>> still get a daily paper (and the NYT in print on Sundays), which is
>> unfortunately part of Gannett.  There's been an increase in
>> sensationalized headlines, possibly in the belief that this will help
>> slow down the decline in subscriptions.  (They're certainly not
>> retaining subscribers for timely news, as they appear to go to press
>> well before midnight the day before, and often splash a story on their
>> front page that was on their mediocre website three days before.)
>>
>> I ascribe most of the remaining mismatch between headlines and content
>> to lack of staff, which breeds sloppy writing and absent editing.
>
> The sensationalist headlines began with the printed newspaper, long
> before TV, radio, or internet even existed. They did it to get you to
> buy their newspaper rather than a competitor's newspaper. It still
> continues now, especially (but not solely!) in the tabloid press.

The functional difference is what you read before and after you've
given money to the writer.

Anything read beforehand needs, from the writer's POV, to make you
want to give him money by clicking through or buying the paper

Anything read after has a different value proposition - it needs
to persuade you that the purchase was well worth it, and that you
should repeat the purchase.

In the online case, it also needs to keep you scrolling to the
end, so you see the maximum number of ads. Sites get paid for
the exposure.

Thus, screaming headlines by articles that don't bury the
lede in print, but not so much online.

pt

On 2024-02-23 16:01:56 +0000, Cryptoengineer said:
> On 2/23/2024 12:14 AM, Your Name wrote:
>> On 2024-02-23 01:47:45 +0000, Mark Jackson said:
>>> On 2/22/2024 5:14 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
>>>> Unfortunately, the way the internet is monetized with ads means that
>>>> every link becomes clickbait, trying to force you to click through
>>>> to find out what its really about. You also see this on most US TV
>>>> news, with teasers of what's coming broadcast to make you sit
>>>> through minutes of ads for the ten seconds of data you're really
>>>> after.
>>>>
>>>> Print media avoid this, since you've already bought the paper, and its
>>>> ads, when you read the story. "Don't bury the lede" is the slogan
>>>> of good print journalism - give the important stuff right at the
>>>> beginning of the story. Internet and TV news bury the lede to the
>>>> maximum extent possible.
>>>
>>> ISTM that these problems have crept into print media as well.  We still
>>> get a daily paper (and the NYT in print on Sundays), which is
>>> unfortunately part of Gannett.  There's been an increase in
>>> sensationalized headlines, possibly in the belief that this will help
>>> slow down the decline in subscriptions.  (They're certainly not
>>> retaining subscribers for timely news, as they appear to go to press
>>> well before midnight the day before, and often splash a story on their
>>> front page that was on their mediocre website three days before.)
>>>
>>> I ascribe most of the remaining mismatch between headlines and content
>>> to lack of staff, which breeds sloppy writing and absent editing.
>>
>> The sensationalist headlines began with the printed newspaper, long
>> before TV, radio, or internet even existed. They did it to get you to
>> buy their newspaper rather than a competitor's newspaper. It still
>> continues now, especially (but not solely!) in the tabloid press.
>
> The functional difference is what you read before and after you've
> given money to the writer.
>
> Anything read beforehand needs, from the writer's POV, to make you
> want to give him money by clicking through or buying the paper
>
> Anything read after has a different value proposition - it needs
> to persuade you that the purchase was well worth it, and that you
> should repeat the purchase.
>
> In the online case, it also needs to keep you scrolling to the
> end, so you see the maximum number of ads. Sites get paid for
> the exposure.
>
> Thus, screaming headlines by articles that don't bury the
> lede in print, but not so much online.
>
> pt

That only works if the online article goes over multiple webpages that
the user has to click through to (some do, but most don't). For single
page stories it is irrelevant - most web browsers load the entire page,
that includes all the text, images and adverts, whether or not the user
scrolls further down the page to see them. The "enticing" headline
appearing in a Google search, "other news" links on the page, etc. is
the clickbait.

It's exactly the same as the newspaper - getting you to buy / read
their version rather than a competitior's version by having a more
"enticing" headline, even if it has little (or even nothing) to do with
the actual story.