It’s the Skim Generation: What Story Are We Telling?

The headline: Israelis are calling attacks a ‘new kind of Palestinian terrorism’

The photograph: An Israeli soldier frisking a Palestinian man wearing a hoodie (instantly recognized in America as the garb of hoodlums up to no good).

The first paragraph, known in journalism as the lead or lede: Young Palestinians with kitchen knives are waging a ceaseless campaign of near-suicidal violence that Israeli leaders are calling “a new kind of terrorism.” Four attacks occurred in the past 48 hours alone — two stabbings and two vehicular assaults.

This was the news from the Occupied Palestinian Territories on Dec. 26, as reported in The Washington Post. Of course, there is a lot more to the story. In fact, in the final few paragraphs (out of 38), some vital context is offered:

“When they look at the Palestinian Authority, this young generation sees a dysfunctional authority that is corrupt and does not represent them,” said Kobi Michael, former head of the Palestinian desk at Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry.

“They have no expectation from the Israelis, they feel neglected by the Arab countries and they understand that the international community is more concerned with ISIS or extremist terrorism that it no longer gives attention to the Palestinian issue. They feel very alone.

“This creates a huge darkness, and they want to change or undermine the order,” he said, “even though they don’t know what should replace it.”

What would your impression be if you read just the headline and first paragraph? Now how does that change after reading the final, parting thoughts (albeit still incomplete)? Assuming you are like most Americans and other Westerners and have only a cursory knowledge of what is going on “over there,” you likely thought in the beginning that Palestinians’ crazy, irrational hatred is driving the unrest that has claimed (as of Dec. 21) 129 Palestinian lives, injured almost 15,100 others and landed more than 2,600 in prison. But when you read those last paragraphs, a niggling thought enters your head that perhaps it is desperation that is driving these youth to risk their lives. (Even though the article only mentions the dysfunction of the Palestinian Authority that governs the West Bank, and merely mentions that young Palestinians “have no expectations from the Israelies” without citing the ample reasons why that is so, the information is enough to undermine the certainty created by the lead.)

Unfortunately, however, those last few paragraphs might as well not exist. Why? As Farhad Manjoo wrote in Slate:

The data show that readers can’t stay focused. The more I type, the more of you tune out. And it’s not just me. It’s not just Slate. It’s everywhere online. When people land on a story, they very rarely make it all the way down the page. A lot of people don’t even make it halfway…And a surprisingly large number aren’t giving articles any chance at all, past the headlines and pictures.

On CNBC, Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet Project, explained: “There is a lot of evidence in a variety of fields, including highly technical and sophisticated fields such as science and medicine, that there is more ‘horizontal’ reading [skimming] today because the volume of material has grown so dramatically.” On the CNBC website, research found that about half of readers dump out of a story after the first three paragraphs. A handful might make it to the end. What’s worse, these same readers widely share articles based on just a glance. According to Manjoo, the data suggest that lots of people are tweeting out links to articles they haven’t really read.

And we might as well get used to it: According to another study by Pew, fewer school kids are reading and writing in the traditional way. They are skimming and surfing, whether the material is on paper or on screen.

So what does this mean? Reporters and copy editors have a critical responsibility when they write the headlines, choose the top-of-the-article photo and craft the lead. True, one can’t convey all of the facts in that limited space. But some balance is possible. Perception is reality, and the perception being created by too many of our media for the Skim Generation is one that is shockingly shallow and one-sided.