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serpentine__babou t1_j3yzcl6 wrote

This is a bit off-topic, but I have to ask- why do so many online news articles fail to identify the state the reported incident has taken place in?

I'm assuming South Carolina for this one. The author also even references what I presume is a university by its acronym without actually specifying which school they're talking about. How am I supposed to know which MU they're talking about if I don't even know what state this story is coming from?

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Gophurkey t1_j3z3cuc wrote

Missouri, fyi

Missouri University (Mizzou) student

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serpentine__babou t1_j3z505m wrote

Thank you! I did end up Googling it after i posted, but I had to gripe first. It's such a pet peeve of mine that online articles don't include that information by default.

I'd get it if it was like Baltimore or Boston or Los Angeles, etc. but Columbia isn't really a very unique city name.

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Gophurkey t1_j3z5m3l wrote

Yeah, I've gotten very excited about finding new restaurants or events near me only to realize they are in a completely different state. Whomp whomp

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normpoleon t1_j428f2b wrote

They say north Columbia to confuse more people.

Not columbia, north columbia, totally different. -Columbian spokesman

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TraditionalGap1 t1_j3z12l7 wrote

It's a local news outlet, so presumably the locals who consume it know where they are

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serpentine__babou t1_j3z4ebn wrote

I know that's probably the excuse, but when you publish an article online, your audience isn't necessarily local anymore.

Even in local, physical papers it can be problematic if you are a small state or bordering several nearby states.

All they need to do is mention the city and state once at the very beginning of the article, and that would completely solve the problem.

And it goes without saying that acronyms should never be used without spelling out the full name/phrase first. Someone who writes for a living should know better.

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BRN83 t1_j3zv937 wrote

I'm with you, I can't tell you how many times I've clicked a link to a news article on Reddit and spent five minutes clicking around the news site trying to figure out which of the fifty states it happened in. Super annoying.

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jonathanownbey t1_j43a8nc wrote

Yeah, we are so many years past local news staying local. It's should just be a standard template item to have city and state in location-specific news articles.

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GiantSlorrr t1_j3zvqbu wrote

I was gonna post this same critique. Why do local news websites feel they don’t need to identify themselves in any way?

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mamawantsallama t1_j403r2q wrote

When I was growing up we were taught in school that every article or anything that we wrote must contain 'who, what, when, where & why'. As I've gotten older I understand why those things can't all be included in clickbait articles, but WTF is wrong with stating at least the city and abbreviation for the state at the start of the article?

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blumpkinpandemic t1_j40ct5h wrote

I'm from Canada so initially thought it was in the country of Columbia but once I started reading that didn't quite make sense lol

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properfoxes t1_j41g5iy wrote

The country is spelled different. Colombia.

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blumpkinpandemic t1_j44azq6 wrote

Good to know :) I'm from British Columbia so I just figured it was the same spelling!

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