I have two IM programs. MSN Messenger gave me this news headline when I logged on this morning: "Aussie women prefer patting dogs over sex" (but note it is not this headline on the actual news report) http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=640293&rss=yes ; Yahoo gave me "Aussie men happiest having sex: index" http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/newshome/5052832. Not only is it the same research, but it is exactly the same article sourced from AAP.

Raises a few questions. Are Aussie men and Aussie women telling researchers the truth, and is there therefore a mismatch between desire and experience in the general population?

Has the Internet really brought us a diversity of views, or just more ways of accessing the same views?

It's obviously a bit more complicated than this, but even in these times of financial independence for women, male sex workers are vastly outnumbered by female sex workers. That would suggest a difference in demand, and possibly a difference in libido between the sexes.

With regards to the AAP stories, I see this all the time.

Also, you may be interested in the tactic of 'Linkbait'.

Some site makes up an incredible story from thin air. All that's needed then is a lazy journo (not hard to find) to read this and take the bait. So the reputable news site puts a link to the site of this fake story as a source for it's own story. The site with the fake story gets hits and advertising revenue as a result.

Interesting question.

Firstly, it would appear that like most media, the titles are aimed to inflame, so the reader is interested in looking further. One appears targeted to potentially get up women's noses (men prefer sex), the other to gets up men's noses (women choose pets over sex), which is probably indicative of the majority of subscribers of either MSN or yahoo. Unfortunatly I think a lot of people fall for this. Hmm, aggression in society being fanned by subtle media manipulation is a topic that hasnt been explored for a while.

Focus.

The problem is, as with all surveys, responses are limited to the questions posed. If for example one was "watching your team win the grand final" that may well have won first place for men (or women). Not knowing what the choices were, I am only having a stab in the dark. Looking through the results though, they seem to reinforce/confirm common stereotypes, so I am not sure that the conducters of the survey actually achieved anything.

I don't know whether this goes to answering your questions, GrahamY, but it seems to me the choice of headlines may be reflective of nothing more than the implementation of editorial spin on the part of the respective corporates: Microsoft/Channel 9, and Yahoo/ Channel 7, respectively.

It seems in the mainstream media old habits die hard.

I note that it is Microsoft/Channel 9 that is the truth twister in this case. Fits.

With respect to the headlines differing from the title of the actual news report, both myself and Klaas Woldring have noted the occasional retitling of articles on OLO in the past. Which is not to say there may not have been reasonable editorial input involved.

Is there in the world of journalism any convention of consulting the true author of a news item if retitling is involved? I have no background in journalism, so I don't know. I do think that in the OLO context it might be practical to implement a convention that an author's title be accepted as it stands unless there has been agreement that it be editorially altered. That would help put OLO even more cuts above the mainstream spin media.

CG,

'Hmm, aggression in society being fanned by subtle media manipulation is a topic that hasnt been explored for a while.
'
Ever see FrontLine:-)

Jack Marx had a funny article recently...

"On the front cover of Fairfax’s The Sun Herald is the big scary headline, “Drunken State”, with a sub-heading telling us that NSW “hospitals treat 40,000 for alcohol abuse in one year”.

.....

I call Duncan Bone of NSW Health and ask if I can be directed towards the relevant material. He replies that he’ll have to make inquiries through Della Bosca’s office (odd), but that he’ll get back to me.

http://blogs.news.com.au/jackmarxlive/index.php/news/comments/rehabilitation/

Headlines are designed to suck as many people as possible into reading a story. Often the headline has little to do with the story itself, but the main point is to attract eyeballs to support advertising. It's not about actually informing anyone about anything. The media has a totally different set of priorities to its consuming public.

Also, marketing is now using polls to promote clients. They've realised people are interested in the society they live in. "More Australians prefer flat white" tells you nothing you need to know, and may not even be true, but it's an opportunity to get a quote from someone representing a coffee shop chain (the client) into what looks like a story, and make the reader think about coffee.

The danger is that people stop trusting the real thing. When polls become meaningless, what of democracy?