Burying the lede beneath a mound of CEO pay

Posted by Marc Hodak on May 16, 2008 under Scandal | Read the First Comment

ABC News answers the question: How divergent can a headline be from the content of a story? When it comes to CEOs, the headline and story apparently don’t have to have anything more than the flimsiest connection. Here’s a recent headline and lede (and accompanying ‘fat-cat’ photo):

Hard-Charging CEO Rakes in Millions
Blankenship Earned More Than $23 Million in 2007

The CEO of the country’s fourth largest coal company raked in more than $23 million in 2007.

And here is the last paragraph:

Blankenship receives the lavish perks that many CEOs are accustomed to, such as the use of the Massey corporate jet, which cost the company and its shareholders more than $180,000 in 2007.

So, this story is clearly about how much money a CEO made, right?

Well, the entire rest of the story, completely sandwiched between the first and last paragraphs, was about this CEO funding a lavish trip and election campaign for a state supreme court justice. The actual lede, buried two-thirds of the way into this story is this:

Fellow justice Larry Starcher told ABCNews.com he believes Blankenship has effectively bought himself a seat on the Supreme Court of West Virginia.

Apparently, the media, and presumably their readers, are more concerned with the raw amount that a CEO legally earns than about a possible corrupt relationship between that CEO and a state court judge.

I’m going on memory, here, but I recall reading that only 40 percent of people read beyond the headline, and less than half of those read beyond the third paragraph. These facts (whatever the actual numbers) are well-understood by publishers, so you’d think they’d at least get the headlines right in terms of content.

“Hodak, you fool, the headline is not designed to convey content…it’s designed to sell news.”

Oh. Well, they should at least get the ledes right, no?

“Hodak, you naive waif, the lede is where the editor or writer gets to shape your opinion about what you are about to read (or not) before getting to the selected facts.”

Here’s a little more sophisticated view about how the press reports on executive compensation.