Advertisers need to get clued into what they’re paying for. Like the thousands of freebie Stribs that get tossed into dumpsters by carriers, advertisers are paying for phony readership counts.

The same thing happened when it was discovered that Coleman was taking money that came from a firm working for the junta in Burma. The headline was vague - something along the lines of “Senate candidate…”.

If that were Al Franken, it would be the top story with his name prominent in the headline.

Without AJAX trickery or a browser plugin there’s no way for web analytics to tell how long a viewer is actually looking at a page. The standard is to take the time between a visitor’s first request and their last request. With the perpetual reloading of pages any browser tab left pointing to the strib looks like a user who’s engaged for hours. No other major newspaper (that I could find) does such a reloading).

I’ll argue long and passionately that the average blogger has more balance than the news, because at least the average blogger does not pretend to be balanced or a journalist.

“In the past, Obama has not advocated tapping the oil reserve, but Zichal said he has reconsidered because he recognizes that high gas prices have caused many Americans to suffer. Obama is making a speech on energy later in the day.”

meaning the story isn’t over. It’s developing. The new story has has a new lede that starts, “In a reversal…” The story is what it is. If there is a shift, which in this case the Obama campaign admitted to, it’s a shift. That’s not semantics, that’s reporting. If McCain said he wants a timeline of withdrawl, that’s a reversal and would cause headlines like “McCain backtracks on Iraq stance” etc etc. If Obama had never said boo about the nation’s oil reserves, then it would have just been a proposal. But the story is the shift, not the proposal. Journalism 101.

This is the nature of AP Wire, which is only exacerbated because of the internet at push-publishing. The Strib didn’t make the change; AP did. The Strib’s website isn’t going to waste time checking every edit on AP story. It’s going to get the most updated and complete story, and this is it. It’s not favoring one candidate or the other. It’s how news unfolds.

I think there are plenty of conservatives who would argue the AP’s headlines are skewering McCain stances, too. I’ll mention it again that those who want to see bias will often only see in the direction that helps their cause the most. AP’s headlines are notoriously pretty poorly written, so I’m not defending them. But you’re conflating news judgement and outright bias. There’s no such thing as objectivity because news judgement is essential to journalism. You can disagree with that judgement, as you’re doing, but I’m saying it’s not as clear cut that the AP is in the tank for McCain, as you are suggesting.

I disagree with your assessment of schematics. When you say “fires back” at McCain, for example, it sounds reactionary and negative. I agree that there is a delicate art of telling a story succinctly without sensationalizing but there is a consistent pattern of headlines changing to become favorable in a certain direction.

Here’s today’s example:

“Obama proposes tapping nation’s oil reserves to help drive down gasoline prices” was a story time stamped at 08:16 in my reader. At 11:45, the same story has a headline that reads “Obama shifts position to propose tapping nation’s oil reserve to drive down gasoline prices.”

There’s an incredible difference between “proposes” and “shifts position.” This isn’t simply semantics.

I think the majority of the examples I list above reflect the same type of changes. I believe there is a consistent pattern.

There’s plenty to be argued in semantics, but it’s endless. I think “Obama defends decision [and tells America it's good]” makes it sound like he was weak and all of America said it was a bad idea while “Obama rejects criticism [and fires back at McCain]” makes him look tough and tells a clearer picture of this being a minor campaign battle. But that’s just me, and more and more readers sadly are going to see the names Obama and McCain and look for anything to reinforce what they already believe. (See also: the Bush headline.)

But back to AP automation: Sites like Newsvine and the majority of news websites I’ve seen that have a raw feed often just automatically update the headlines and stories fed in through AP. It’s not an editorial decision; it’s a business decision. AP stories increase exposure and site rankings and give local readers a reason to stick around on their local paper’s site. Those updates could be overridden, of course, but I can all but guarantee no one is doing that for newspaper websites on AP stories, across the board. It’s not worth it for content that is just dumped on websites all over the net.

The print edition, however, does not operate like that. Most stories are blended from multiple wires or at least hand-chosen to find the best version, positioned on a page in relation to the rest of the day’s news, and given a headline that’s then examined by multiple people. And locally written stories can have headlines that are changed throughout a night, between editions, as stories change, moods shift and more and more people get involved. What you call slant, some might call judgement. It’s not always the best judgement, but it’s human judgement.

Writing headlines is a delicate art of telling a story succinctly without sensationalizing but also not making your readers snooze. It’s tough to do well every day. AP’s headlines are not the best examples, which is why I’d invite you to buy the paper and see what the difference is between shoveled stories from a massive news agency down an RSS reader and locally-tailored and tightly edited news pulled from a variety of sources placed in the context of a complete day’s worth of news.

When a story that talks about both campaigns agreeing to the standard amount of debates turns into Obama “playing it safe” and “stepping back,” you’re telling a different story on the headline alone. It’s not about agreeing to debates anymore, it’s about Obama on being on the defensive.

While I agree with the amount of automation (and how the unedited AP Wire is scary), I have a difficult time believing that the evolving slant of headlines is completely automatic. The Star Tribune has a choice of headlines and the option to write their own.

It’s clear you have more background on this subject than I do. I appreciate your comments; this is good conversation.

With AP headlines served up through newspaper websites, there often is not a human who authorizes every write-through on the wire. In all of these cases, I don’t see how any of the new headlines completely changes or tells the opposite story. There are cases of shift of focus or a recasting to show the news value of a story, and that sometimes tends to focus on conflict or things that are surprising or phrases that make readers read stories.

Like this example:
Help for homeowners, mortgage giant sails through House, on track to become law
vs.
Help for strapped homeowners, mortgage giants sails through House after Bush drops opposition
answers the question of how this hotly-contested issue all of a sudden sailed through: a shift from presidential opposition.

“Obama rejects criticism” vs. “Obama defends decision”: essentially the same idea, but the difference is in the second part, where it mentions McCain, giving ownership to the criticism.

Most of these changes are all in the nuance and I would argue an improvement. And that’s from a journalistic standpoint, not ideological. For the AP, these stories are pushed out as quickly as possible, then reworked later to improve them. (Unedited AP Wire is a pretty scary thing.) Those are pushed automatically to the website. As far as Star Tribune headlines changing, I’ll definitely buy that, but the number of hands on a given story is way more than people would believe. Stories change, interviews happen late, context and past stories get found after the first version gets pushed, stories get shifted around on pages, and, as the saying goes, stuff happens. It’s not an excuse; it’s a reality. And that’s not often conservative or liberal pandering, it’s just how news sausage is made.

Thanks for your comments. In the above cases, I believe they’re all AP stories. I’m aware that there are multiple versions available; my main concern is why they choose to change it. In many cases, the meaning completely changes or sometimes tells an opposite story - something I assume, perhaps wrongly, doesn’t happen automatically.

I have seen this happen on some Star Tribune stories as well too.

I originally started to draw some conclusions in this piece but to your point, my examples are AP and that I didn’t actually discuss this with anyone at the Star Tribune. I edited it down to just showing the headlines for the most part.

These headlines are also the headlines in the paper, not in print. These headlines seem awfully long to fit in the paper, and most of the AP political stories get blended with the best of wires into smaller, round-up stories in the metro edition.

Your issue is most likely with AP, not the Strib. I’m not saying that perspectives don’t get infused into stories. But it is not as nefarious as it might seem. There is an argument for most of these changes, I would argue, based on the news at hand and the judgement of the reporters/editors. What some call sensational are often on the other side of an issue that some call highly interesting. Or perhaps newsworthy.

I’m sure any analysis of the paper version would show some interesting trends, too. Mostly it would show how often stories have to get whittled away in the shrinking newspaper of the Twin Cities, but it also may show a more balanced and we-skewer-anyone-who-needs-it attitude I find in the morning. But you might have to spend 50 cents to see it.