It should not come as a surprise, but AI is taking over the newsfeeds. Within a couple of weeks, the number of AI-generated news and information sites showed a 155% increase – from 49 in April this year to 125 on the 15th of May. The number was published by NewsGuard, an independent news and information ratings service.
In a world that is moving to electronic media, one of the biggest strongholds of printed news is its credibility. Even in a media wary environment this is being confirmed again and again. Should a newspaper not rather bank on that trust than undermine it? If the online edition of a renowned newspaper changes their headlines to get more views, is this already clickbaiting?
In their study “All the Headlines that Are Fit to Change: Analysis of Headline Changes in the Media Industry” researchers at Wake Forest University found that The New York Times regularly changes the headlines of their online articles. During the period observed in 2021 about 14% of all headlines were changed relatively immediately after they were published. Another 6% were subject to A/B testing, in which different readers were shown differing headlines.
Some Facebook posts might stay in your mind but how about the ads found next to them? Are newsbrands more memorable than Facebook or vice versa?
Australian ThinkNewsBrands wanted to find out and commissioned the audience research lab MediaScience to get details on how recall, brand recognition and brand image compare in newspaper versus electronic media. The study included more than 5,350 participants and ran across 42 print runs and 252 websites which together created 6,037 unique brand exposures.
According to the findings, ads in printed newspapers outperform Facebook ads of all types by up to four times. When looking at printed ads, including quarter, half and full-page ads, compared with display, 6, or 15-second Facebook ads, news offers a superior level of unprompted recall.
