A Rant on the Future of News

As far as I’m concerned lately, the future of news is print. At least a page of print will hold still so you can read it.

Online news sites are afflicted with a jumping disorder, a downloading disorder, and a hell-no-you-can’t-scroll-till-I-say-so disorder.

The page jumps around as it’s downloading. If you are lucky enough to spot a link to whatever it is you want to read, you can’t click on it because it will move the second you click and you’ll end up with something you don’t want instead.

The home pages of news sites have mega kilobyte images which download at a snail’s pace. Once they finally download, everything jumps again. Heaven know what other tracking crap and advertiser crap is downloading in secret at the same time, making it all run even slower.

And while and this jumping and slow downloading is going on, you have no control over the page. You can’t scroll in hopes of reading the rest of something or finding something you want. If you try to scroll nothing happens until suddenly you jump down the page to far beyond where you wanted to go.

What the hell kind of user experience are online news sites foisting off on us? Give it to me on something static. Like a sheet of paper.

6 thoughts on “A Rant on the Future of News”

  1. The NEWS used to be the TRUTH but today the news is whatever someone want to say & it changes by the second. No real truth to it. Kinda’ like PROPAGANDA is in socialistic countrys is Just what they want you to think, not the REAL NEWS at all…..So what are we to do about it??? That is the QUESTION:

  2. Lol V,

    Online news sites are afflicted with a jumping disorder,

    I know what you mean…so annoying. Its Flash V mostly. They snatch it off you then send it back to you with either some other rubbish topic or Flash you some popup, then you must do a search of the page to find where you were.

    Years ago when animation was in ‘vogue’ for web sites they moaned and groaned it was interference for the user.

    Flash is worse, it can start a migraine or even an epileptic fit…no warning its Flash content.

    It may be just the scroll bar on some sites you lose your grip on. Up we go like an lift out of control, then its down again seconds later…up agin..

    Some even want to charge you for the privilege of ruining your online presence.

    Example,

    A great singer on the X-Factor, I was reading about her when I was blacked out by a ‘Buzz Magazine’ advert…sheesh!

    I came out to write here and tested the site (The Sun) again, got bombarded again, same advert.

    Its not like they don’t know you just visited a few seconds ago.

    Joe,

    Like politicians, Media is trained to lie. In their mind they don’t lie but they do now and again to satisfy the readers admit they ‘stretch’ the truth.

    Only believe what you actually see, and never believe what you read in the papers.

    There was a big thing going on last week about a log-jam and who caused it. Someone was trying to convince the people it was the rain. This week I see that a different someone is worried about the lack of rain in the same area.

    Who do you believe, who is lying?

    1. Kate, Right. If you go directly to someplace like The Daily Beast or The Huffington Post or ABC news you can be guaranteed you’ll be pulling your hair out. I look at Google News, which is perfect, but if you are foolish enough to click a link to a full story you may be sorry when you see what starts to download and dance in front of you.

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