Where’s the beef?

You click a news story, excited to bask in the knowledge before you.
But as the page loads, nothing of interest is in view…

Sound familiar? Here’s what I’m talking about:

And I’m not picking on The Wall Street Journal here. It’s The Guardian, The Telegraph, the LA Times… the list goes on.

It’s important to distinguish between news sites and magazines/blogs. I enjoy the full-bleed photographs on FastCo and here on Medium. But news is different: I’m in a hurry and the photos often add nothing. Story on a city? Oh look, a picture of the skyline. Politician? Great, that’s them talking into a microphone.

Journalists work hard not to bury the lead. Why bury the whole story?

Not all news sites do a poor job. The New York Times and USA Today are great examples of getting to content quickly.

The New York Times manages to display large photography without pushing content below the fold.

USA Today has a distracting sidebar, but the content is still in plain view.

What do you think? Am I the only one who can’t stand this?