Numbers never added up for Fox’s brand of online news
This column appeared Jan. 5, 2001, in the Online Journalism Review. Here’s the version on the OJR site.
On the same day word came that the News Corp. was shuttering its online division — effectively gutting its online news and sports operations — Web users who surfed over to FoxNews.com could read about a reported sighting of the escapees from a Texas prison.
Or they could read the off-lead piece, which foxnews.com’s editors deemed the second most newsworthy item of the day: “Tempest in a D-Cup: Jenna Franklin had something BIG in mind for her 16th birthday, but now the plastic surgeon says no.”
That recipe — a dollop of hard news, topped off by some jiggle or sizzle — is a familiar one to those who like their news diet accompanied by a side of flash and trash. [Read more…] about Tabloid journalism on the Web takes a hit