The Rise of Push Notifications and the Death of Moderation
By Megan Stringer
Striking workers. Suicidal nannies. Political name bashing. Mayoral run announcements. Celebrity profiles. Terrorist attacks. Mass shootings. Movie reviews. Smarter living tips.
These are just a handful of any given story topics I get from push notifications throughout the day (and the wee hours of the morning –– a 3 a.m. push notification is not uncommon either).
As an active citizen and news consumer, I might want to immediately know if Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel isn’t running for re-election anymore. But I’m not so sure I need to be urgently informed about a Lady Gaga profile.
That doesn’t mean both aren’t equally important. I strongly believe that hard political news isn’t more essential than well-done features and narrative reporting. A diverse media diet is crucial, but so is the way in which that diet is delivered and consumed.
While push notifications are a great invention for urgent breaking news and announcements waiting on full stories and context, they’re often abused by major news outlets. What was once a way to immediately provide functional and pertinent information for steadfast readers has grown into just another way to prompt readers to click on an article and give another page view. But page views don’t always build trust and relationships, two things news publications should be more focused on than metrics alone.
When I checked my phone around lunch break today, after not tuning into the news for around four hours, here’s what I saw from the New York Times:
“A suicidal nanny and three babies stabbed: An attack at a New York maternity center exposed the underground industry of ‘birth tourism.’”
While this might be a fascinating and meaningful story, it doesn’t make for a good push notification. Editors should carefully consider not only the stories they push out to readers and subscribers, but the wording they use in them. Suicidal nanny is sensational and sensitive. While someone might click to learn more, there’s no hint to what this story really entails other than some likely drama.
When a publication sends out a push notification to a reader’s home screen on their phone, they’re actively interrupting that reader’s day and their thought process. Rather than people asking for and seeking out information, it’s provided to readers without context in what’s considered their personal space. They’ve downloaded your app because they trust you, and they still care about the news you can give them.
It’s important to make sure that information is accessible. However, there should be a balance between availability and overzealous, sensationalized content. People will read something if it impacts them, even if it doesn’t seem like a flashy story.
If a reader is receiving a push notification from an outlet, they’re likely a loyal follower of that reporting. Push notifications are different from advertisements in the sense that you can’t randomly stumble across them. You probably won’t get push notifications until you’ve downloaded a publication’s app.
Some might argue that it’s okay to bombard readers then, because they’ve downloaded the app –– that’s what they’re here for. But at the same time, that devoted reader has given your news outlet precedent over other endless platforms. So what are you giving them in return? Are you abusing their faithful readership?
In the case of the suicidal nanny push notification, the New York Times is.
If language matters in our reporting, it matters in our social media posts and push notifications too. The story branded with the death of children and a suicidal nanny draws comparison to the types of push notifications sent out in June this year, when celebrity figures Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain took their own lives within weeks of each other.
The news is often a tragedy of necessity. Those push notifications were hard on a lot of people. While news junkies want to stay in the loop, it’s a lot to ask of somebody emotionally to tug them out of whatever they’re doing and bring to mind topics like suicide, murder or natural disasters.
Some news organizations recognize this and have been working to better connect with readers. USA Today launched a version of their app earlier this year that allows readers to choose from specific topics they want alerts on, rather than broad categories. For example, people can select news categories like Hurricane Michael and Russia, rather than simply environmental issues and politics. It’s a plus for the readers, who get information they want and can use, and for publications, who learn more about each individual mobile reader.
This is an improvement from the past couple years, when the online media site Mic sent out push notifications that played video directly on a viewer’s lock screen. It’s one thing to tell people a story is published, but another to throw them right into it.
Overall, local news outlets seem to understand this concept better than national outlets. Push notifications I receive from the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times are exactly the sort of breaking local news that I turn to them for. Because I respect their process of mobile circulation, I still turn to them for feature and other more narrative reads. I won’t necessarily do that for a news organization if I feel like they’ve betrayed my trust by bombarding me with content they only want me to click on for their metrics. Citizens are smart, and can sense that.
So instead, I swipe the notification away.