The big push: The challenges of push notifications in journalism

Imagine sitting in a meeting when you feel your phone buzz from your pocket. Curious as to what notification you may have, you try to sneak a look at your lock screen under the table.

It turns out to be an update from Quartz, with the headline, “A 2-year-old boy is missing after an alligator dragged him into the water a Disney resort in Florida.”

These types of notifications distributed across mobile devices are becoming a much more common way for news outlets to reach their targeted audience.

But did you understand the full story from reading the notification?

This is just one of many challenges journalists are facing as push notifications become one of the primary ways news outlets grab our attention.

There are plenty of news organizations investing time and energy into creating the perfect push notifications.

On his blog, media consultant Mario Garcia said journalists need to add the skill of creating captivating push notifications to their tool belt.

“The journalism of seduction may be the new skill to perfect,” Garcia said.

But there are plenty of challenges that journalists, especially those who rely on push notifications to reach their audiences, will face.

The appropriate tone

Journalists need to be aware of what is appropriate to send as a push notification and what is not. The story you are trying to push can easily be construed through the tone of the notification.

There are certain stories where it is okay to post with a more conversational tone. For example, if the story is light hearted or based on entertainment, it can be sent out with more casual voice.

But if the story is serious, sensitive or important, it may not be a wise idea to create a push notification with the same conversational tone.

An example of this can be seen when pop icon Prince died.

The Washington Post pushed a notification saying, “Prince has died. Publicist says the legendary singer was found dead at home. He was 57.”

This is an appropriate tone because it lays out the facts for the person receiving the push notification. It clearly provides the key pieces of the story for the reader in way that can be easily understood.

Meanwhile, Quartz also sent out a push notification on Prince’s death saying, “Prince is dead at the age of 57, TMZ reports. ‘How can you just leave me standing / Alone in a world that’s so cold?’”

So what is wrong here?

While Quartz tried a creative approach to grab the reader’s attention with Prince’s lyrics, it takes the seriousness out of the report.

When it comes to stories like these, especially in regards to death, it is important to be straightforward with your audience without downplaying the sensitivity of the situation.

Room for misinterpretation

Due to the limited space on a smartphone’s lock screen, it is hard for journalists to provide all of the important pieces of information for each story.

This leaves room for the audience to be confused as to what the story is about, especially if there is not enough information provided.

CNN senior mobile editor Etan Horowitz told Nieman Lab reporter Joseph Lichterman in an interview that CNN’s push notifications aim to be self-contained.

“We don’t ever want to purposefully leave information out of an alert to entice people to click through to our app,” Horowitz said in the interview. “Potentially, you can also entice the reader to want to tap on it to know more, but it shouldn’t be that they have to.”

But even with this goal, CNN still faces some challenges in their crafting of push notifications. There was one push notification from CNN that read, “1st woman to climb Everest dies.”

While that does provide some significant information on the story at hand, it does not provide us with enough information.

Was the woman climbing Mount Everest when she died? Did she die on top of the mountain? This notification reads as if she was the first woman to climb the mountain, then she died because of it.

It turns out if you read the story, she died at 77-years-old from cancer. Her death had nothing to do with climbing Mount Everest.

As journalists, we strive to not only be accurate, but concise as well. While this should carry over into our crafting of push notifications, it is also important to remember that we need to include all of the important information for readers to understand.

Annoyance of the audience

No one likes to receive 10 text messages in a row, so why would anyone like to receive 10 push notifications in a row?

Journalists need to find the perfect balance between informing the audience while at the same time not annoying the audience.

During the 2016 presidential election, many news outlets used push notifications to keep their audience in the loop with as the results came in.

In an article written by TechCrunch reporter Sarah Perez said it is this annoyance of readers that makes people skeptical of the usage of push notifications.

“The problem with push notification abuse is not just that it’s annoying when you’re interrupted by something that has no meaning to you, it’s that it creates an environment where users become suspect of the whole push notification mechanism itself,” she said.

It is important for journalists to know the difference between posting necessary push notifications and abusing notifications.

During the 2016 presidential election, The Guardian sent real time updates through push notifications on the election results throughout the evening and into the early morning.

While it is important for people to be in the loop with the election results, not everyone wants to receive multiple push notifications within a short time frame.

Journalists need to be cognizant that their push notifications could be annoying to their audience if sent too frequently, especially for news that is not intriguing or important.

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While push notifications are an important tool for journalists to use when reaching their audience, there are still these challenges that they will face when perfecting the use of this form of communication.

Dan Shanoff, the founder of Quickish, said in a Nieman Lab article that people prefer to read news that is easily digestible.

Push notifications have a lot of potential in the world of journalism, and it will be interesting to see how journalists combat these problems and perfect their skills in reaching their target audiences.