Ah, Metromix! How we love the pageviews you generate!
Today's example: A "cheating" survey promoted today with an eye-catching photo on The Indianapolis Star's homepage. It's a cropped version of a larger image (see, below), showing a shirtless man embracing a woman, seated on a kitchen counter, her legs spread slightly apart. The caption says: "Everybody cheats, right?" Clicking on the photo takes readers to the survey. (Update: By 11:20 p.m. ET, the Star had substituted a more benign photo in the promo.)
A Gannett Blog reader sent me an e-mail of the image, which they termed the worst they'd seen on the Star's site.
Here's the full, uncropped image:
OMG.
ReplyDeleteOne of the survey questions: "What celebrity would most make you want to cheat?"
Of the possible responses so far, 3% have chosen Snooki.
Looks like a scene right out of "Fatal Attraction" with Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was more like Fatal Attraction with Michael Douglas and Glenn Close.
ReplyDelete6:31 pm was close. But, yes, it was Close.
ReplyDeleteI used to live in Indiana. Ain't mobody there looks like that.
ReplyDeleteGive me a break! What garbage.
ReplyDeleteAnybody else think it's ironic that at the same time Gannett is outsourcing and getting a little more serious about comment moderation the Metromix site and homepages and getting even raunchier?
ReplyDeleteWow. Now that's my definition of ethical journalism and upholding community standards in the tradition of abstemious Frank Gannett. Little bit more rumpy-pumpy in the daily paper, and we may get the kids to read it. I've got to get into the heartland of this country a little more.
ReplyDeleteI seriously doubt that was staff-produced. Probably just lifted from photos.com. We've used photos.com for section-front art many times in the past...how wrong is that?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Gannett will get into online porn about the time that that industry decides it can't make any money on it anymore? That would be about par for the course.
ReplyDeleteSex sells. And Gannett web sites have become purveyors of soft porn. It's all about clicks, baby.
ReplyDeleteTotally disgusting and has no place in a mainstream newspaper. No morals from the top, obviously, anything goes now in trying to sell papers. Sad state when something like that is published in a "News" paper.
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ReplyDeleteThey didn't cross the line because there is no line to cross. Gannett made it clear a long time ago that it's much more concerned about money than anything else. I suspect most people who live in Gannett markets already know that the papers can't be taken seriously as news organizations, so they might as well drive traffic to their sites.
ReplyDeleteI mean, what do they have to lose? The reputation that they sold out a long time ago.
More than just the pix, but the paper is promising it won't identify people who confess to the paper their infidelities. Yet doesn't Metromix use and rely on Ripple6 software that identifies for advertisers and provides them with demographic info. the people who are using the Metromix site?
ReplyDeleteHere's the copy:
"Metromix's cheating survey
Vice presidents do it. So do famous golfers. And, well, so does every famous man with a hotter-than-he-is wife. But what we really want to know is why YOU did it (or, why you didn't).
We present our Metromix cheating survey. We'll use the results in an upcoming issue, but don't worry -- the votes are anonymous. We won't tell your wife/husband, we swear, baby."
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
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