Look, I adore you, New York Times. Absolutely love you. I read every page, including about things that I’m completely uninterested in, such as opera, or gay bathhouses, or Canada.
I read faithfully every day, even when I’m traveling in some God-forsaken place like Tajikistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or Kansas.
And it’s when I’m far from home, reading the Times online rather than in its proper, printed format, that I notice the ridiculous number of words in blue hyperlink.
Now, I don’t know what kind of over-caffeinated, Ritalin-snorting numbskulls you employ over at nytimes.com, but somebody needs to tell them to give it a rest. They’re driving me crazy. They link everything. Can I please have a news article with text in just one color? You’re beating me black and blue with all this linky-linkedness!
Yes, I know the Internet is a very cool thing. Yes, I know you can helpfully guide me from a story about Muammar Gaddafi’s murderous madness to a profile of Hugo Chavez. But if I want to find out about something – anything – I can look it up myself in a few clicks, damn it.
Hyperlinks can be wonderful things. Maybe you want to reference an article that inspired you, or that you want to rebut. Fine. Perhaps you’ve referred to something obscure, but important, and it’s a good bet people will need more information. Alright, then. Maybe you’re very excited about the new plantain peeler you bought, and you want to tell all your friends. That’s okay, too.
But for Heaven’s sake, nytimes.com… Hey! Hey, I’m talking to you! Get your over-linked, ADHD-afflicted focus back here, you nutty newspaper.
As I was saying… for Heaven’s sake, nytimes.com, you don’t have to tell me who President Obama is. I’m aware! Black guy. Smart. Stylish. Runs the country and stuff.
I kid you not. Check it out for yourself. In a February 18th piece “Politics of Wisconsin Labor Fight Spread to Washington”, the very first mother-loving words, “President Obama” are hyperlinked. To a New York Times biography of our head of state. As if there are readers thinking, “Well, I’m interested in this Wisconsin business, but who the Hell is this Obama person of whom you speak?”
It gets worse. A big story on February 12th reported on apparent efforts by retailer J.C. Penney to game the Google system, ensuring that Penney’s came up at the top of search results. The article made an offhand reference to Amazon.com. The Times hyperlinked “Amazon”. To the bloody Amazon website!
What in the name of Jesus and assorted other Prophets are you trying to do to us, New York Times? What do you think we’re thinking? “Gee, this article is just fascinating so far. But I’ve already read 67 words, and I need a break. Fortunately, the Times has provided this handy link, so I can go to Amazon.com and buy the complete Facts of Life box set on DVD.”
How stupid does the Times’ link-lovin’ get? Extremely stupid. Really, really, tremendously, pull-your-hair-out-and-spank-the-Pastor stupid.
Here’s a hot one: A February 21ststory on a community-minded and very odd guy in the Bronx mentioned that the fellow once led an effort to clean up a playground next to his building. The insane, daylight-deprived elves in the basement at the Times… they… damn it, they hyperlinked the playground!
They wanted me to follow the link and read a 2006 press release from the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. About a playground. And I did – which I think puts my own mental health in the spotlight, quite frankly.
New York Times, I hope you’re listening. I love you with a passion I feel for only a few things, such as rare steak and women between the ages of 28 and 48 (okay, maybe early 50s).
But I’m begging you to apply some discretion to your hyperactive hyperlinking. Please, please stop behaving like an obsessive compulsive 8 year-old who’s just found his mom’s label maker.
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Susie Lindau
Cathy GF
femme forte aka candace
L in the Southeast
Harry's Ghost
Alysa Salzberg
Salon.com
Comments
Therein may lie the answer to the problem.
♥R
Fusun, there are no answers, surely. NYT is going to keep linking more and more things until every blessed word is blue. (sigh)
.
Agreed about the links. I rarely follow them; quit using them in my
own posts for the most part because, as you point out, if someone is interested even a bit they can google search in a hot second.
Yes, and it ain't just the big boys -- it's even more rampant down below, as attested to by the fact that the Net is littered with pseudo-informational posts littered with links that have nothing to do with the subject matter of the post
Too bad we can't imbed the little bastards into our comments.
Clever post, MTN. Dig it!
Best Wishes,
Blittie
DecentDiscourse, I love your screen name. Very civilized. I think you're right in your diagnosis. I must have HCD. Do I get fun drugs to treat it? I'll rush to my TV now.
Hello, Just Cathy - very nice to see you again!
Tom, you mean pseudo-informational posts like most of the piffle I post here?
ConnieMack, I hadn't considered that... think there's any chance of a WikiLeaks exposure of something shocking?
Scanner, why do the ones we love always hurt us?
Margaret, bang on. I scroll on. I try to resist. But there's always that niggling sense that I might be missing something. So I go back and click. And there's nothing. (Grrr.) Then I swear copiously and feel better.
Times I grew up with. Not even close.
I was researching an article on the Obama's Administration's new attitude toward home ownership, and found so many material errors in the article that I simply couldn't follow it.
It wasn't so much that the article was factually incorrect as it was that the writing was so obtuse that it was almost impossible to figure out what the reporter was actually saying.
I checked several other sources, and discovered that, in a number of cases, the first four sentences were absolutely identical.
That's when I realized that the authors of these pieces, including the one that appeared in the Times, had cribbed their stories off press releases from the White House Press Office.
What I found even more amazing was that I could find a number of articles referring to the White House Report, but I couldn't find the actual report anywhere.
When I was on the other side of the table, as someone who was being written about instead of the one doing the writing, I was astounded by how inaccurate the coverage was.....the emperor is skinny dipping again.
Still congrats on the EP.
28-48 how funny and just in I think 2008 you were ok with 20?
You are getting wiser and older. I am getting older, I hope wiser. I have been told by my mother I have a lot of useless facts floating around in my brain. If you need any useless facts, just let me know.
I can't believe Creekend_UK is not over here supporting you now... Even though you have become all colonial and stuff... LOL
Well, I'm off to look for Fred and Creekend_UK....
I mean whose going to press send?
My cheek and tongue were simply doing a little dance, and having a go at some of the more egregious examples of the Times' habit of often linking rather silly things.
On the other hand, but for a surfeit of silly things to write about, I would have no blog. ;)
In my search for an article on the law review article, I came up with the obit on the author in, you guessed it, the NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/us/12stevens.html