
The New York Times sells premium ads based on how an article makes you feel - hhs
https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2019/the-new-york-times-sells-premium-ads-based-on-how-an-article-makes-you-feel/
======
cs702
Below is the list of feelings, which, according to the article, the NYT is now
predicting with ML models trained on a proprietary dataset collected
internally from a sample of articles shown to a sample of readers. I've marked
positive feelings with `(+)`, negative feelings with `(-)`, and feelings which
could be viewed one way or another, depending on context, with `( )`.

Remarkably, a majority of these feelings are positive, so this advertising
initiative, which has been successful at increasing per-ad revenues by as much
as 80%, is creating a financial incentive for the NYT to produce content that
generates positive feelings in readers!

On its face, this is _shocking_ to me. I would have _never, ever_ expected
positive content to be more profitable than negative content! In hindsight,
however, after thinking about it a bit, it kind of makes sense. I'm now
wondering, could advertising perhaps become (gasp) a force for good, at least
in certain settings?

    
    
      NYT PREDICTED FEELINGS
      Optimistic             (+)
      Inspired               (+)
      Self-Confident         (+)
      Amused                 (+)
      Adventurous            (+)
      In the mood to spend   ( )
      Love                   (+)
      Sadness                (-)
      Boredom                ( )
      Interest               (+)
      Fear                   (-)
      Hate                   (-)
      Hope                   (+)
      Happiness              (+)
      Nostalgic              ( )
      Indulgent              ( )
      Competitive            (+)
      Informed               (+)

~~~
yorwba
The predicted emotions are actually contained in the HTML source of each
article. E.g. for an article I randomly grabbed off the front page:

    
    
      curl 'https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/sports/tiger-woods-wins-masters.html' | perl -n -e'/"emotions":"([^"]*)"/ && print $1'
    

inspired,boredom,happiness,optimistic,not_interest,not_hate,not_amused,not_inthemoodtospend,not_informed,not_love,not_sadness,not_fear,not_hope

~~~
craftyguy
> not_hope

This one is a little surprising. Does the NYT think this article dashes any
hopes readers might have of winning the Masters?

~~~
ComputerGuru
It's not hopelessness, just not hope. As in, reading this article does not
elicit feelings of Hope in the reader.

~~~
megaremote
Isn't it a huge comeback story, Wood who has not won any major in 12 years?

~~~
mrguyorama
I would assume most people do not place themselves in Tiger Woods' shoes

~~~
ComputerGuru
Yup. In fact, I venture a lot of stories like this border on eliciting
emotions of despair or reduced self-worth for a subset of the readers,
something along the lines of "so and so did x/y/z and they're n years
(younger|older) than me, what have I done that's worth anything in my life?"

------
matt4077
It would seem that such ad placement, based only on content and not the
reader, is exactly what privacy advocates have been clamoring for.

I know the mention of emotions creeps people out. But it’s probably the only
salient connection a general interest publisher such as the Times can offer
advertisers. Very few of their articles mention any product, product category,
or really any factual nexus to anything somebody might want to sell.

~~~
cirgue
This sets up a horrifying set of perverse incentives for journalists. This is
not to say that the set of incentives facing journalism today isn't already
pretty bad, but this forces entities like the NYT further onto a path of
convergent evolution with the National Enquirer.

~~~
krastanov
The journalists I know describe something they call a "firewall". Supposedly
the business staff and the journalists simply do not communicate except for
very formalized channels. At some places they are not permitted to walk in on
each other's floors/buildings. From personal observations, it seems they
usually adhere to the firewall.

~~~
52-6F-62
I’ve worked closely with media, and this is something I’ve witnessed as well.

Where many people like to propose that journalists and editors are steered by
the business and sales staff-my own experience couldn’t be further from the
truth.

I can’t speak for less reputable outlets. The journalistic outlets I’ve worked
with have been very dedicated to their own voice—and passionately so.

~~~
kortilla
This works for obvious direct pressure, but there is still pressure in that
they work for the same entity. A nytimes journalist wants the paper to do well
and as long as that journalist knows how the paper makes money, there will be
pressure mentally to support that.

~~~
52-6F-62
In my experience, most writers are much more detached from the business than
that.

They admire working for a publication because of its journalistic reputation,
are sometimes unionized [not always], and often stand opposed to business
imposing its own desires ranging from editorial changes to working conditions.

So I know it's only anecdotal, but my experience leads me to believe your
presumptions are largely unfounded.

Many journalists have about as much attachment to their publications as a GM
factory line worker has to GM stock prices. The pride is in the quality of
output. They never expect to become rich off of that work. For journalists,
the money comes in publishing best-selling books—not selling 5% more
subscriptions one year, or 10x ad-impressions.

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jameslk
Sounds like a great conflict of interest. Emotional manipulation will become a
metric to optimize. Depending on what the content manipulates you into
feeling, you may sell more ads. This leads to more manipulative content since
it's what sells more ads.

As an alternative to current targeted advertising, this seems much worse. At
least I can block ads and trackers. I can't block content that's been
engineered to manipulate.

~~~
return0
doesnt bloomberg already reward articles that shake the markets? (at least
thats a rumour)

~~~
matt4077
No

~~~
return0
This suggests otherwise [https://www.businessinsider.com/bloomberg-reporters-
compensa...](https://www.businessinsider.com/bloomberg-reporters-
compensation-2013-12)

------
tehjoker
"The offering also includes “neutrality targeting”: that is, isolating
upsetting stories that could decrease receptivity to ad messages — placements
to be avoided."

In a news environment driven by ad revenues, expect the news to avoid hard
hitting stories that make you feel bad. Shame and anger are emotions that
cause change -- they don't sell consumer products well. Chipper stories are
the order of the day, never mind the complete capture of the information
system by corporations, government elites, and the rich generally.

~~~
matt4077
You should maybe coordinate with the other popular conspiracy theory, namely
that „the media“ is driving outrage because it sells so well.

~~~
coldtea
Or the naive, starry eyed, theory (only upper middle class Americans could
ever be sold) that there are no conspiracies.

In other words, that whenever big private interests have a chance to make more
profit by collusion, alignment, and covert action, they never do...

------
taurath
I wonder how much they’re hacking the “Popular” section in the app to increase
ad revenue. I notice that absolutely 0 of their top stories are ever at the
top popular article list - usually travel, opinion and health, which
presumably has more high traffic ads.

They’re also messing with the scroller - it will stop scrolling on an ad to
make sure it loads.

------
spyspy
Here's a video from one of the data scientists who worked on the project
explaining the science behind it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVzZmNxmWko](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVzZmNxmWko)

------
narrator
Good! I can't wait till I have a browser plugin that will tell me what my mood
will be after reading a news article. You could make it an add-on to
RescueTime. One could limit depressing or enraging news articles to 10 minutes
a week.

------
kylek
NYTimes is the main reason I've been on the search for some kind of feature
for HN (addon? greasemonkey script? ANYTHING) to auto-hide articles based on
domain or title matches. Does anyone have a solution?

~~~
krastanov
It is difficult for me to see this as not being naive. Yes, the editorial
staff of any newspaper would have opinions, and even worse, implicit biases.
1: that does not mean that the firewall between journalists and editorial is
being broken casually; 2: you correct for bias by using diverse journalistic
sources (and removing only the worse offenders like say Breitbart or
Infowars), not by completely disregarding information from imperfect sources.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
The commenter stated they wanted to skip seeing NYT, which seems like a
personal preference. Why not skip breitbart and NYT? If you're trying to avoid
exposure to a certain bias for personal reasons it seems reasonable that any
news source could be avoided.

For example, it sounds like you might identify as center left. Some people on
the left are so disillusioned with the establishment that they would rather
avoid it entirely. For example one could replace NYT with Democracy Now and
get an informed global perspective like the NYT without getting so much
centrist exposure.

~~~
krastanov
I concur with the sibling comment. I am not suggesting filtering based on
political ideology. I am suggesting filtering based on journalistsic quality
and honesty (e.g. WaPo on the left, and __some __parts of Fox on the right can
be somewhat biased, but they are worthwhile) versus naked editorial decisions
that do not care about facts (e.g. Infowars or __some __ "antifa" outlets).

And yes, the OP can certainly be happy if they do not consume any news or if
they consume only media taylored to their emotional pleasure[1]. However, it
is in my interest for my fellow humans to be well informed, with a diversity
of legitimate sources, so that when we make collective decisions we decided
not-horribly.

1: Although specifically singling out NYT is very strange in that context, as
they are by far a more moderate and truthful albeit imperfect source.

------
bonestamp2
On one hand, I like this because it might skew "news" production toward
positive news stories. On the other hand, I dislike it because the news should
just be the news and the business of the news should not skew the content of
the news. But, that's probably too much to ask these days.

------
HuShifang
Bet the Financial Times doesn't do this.

(See [https://www.cjr.org/special_report/why-the-left-cant-
stand-t...](https://www.cjr.org/special_report/why-the-left-cant-stand-the-
new-york-times.php) \-- whatever your politics she makes a fair point)

------
c13u
Is this one of those instances where regulatory laws would help? Something
like requiring publishers to place a notice saying, "This article typically
invokes hope. The ads shown on this page utilize this tendency".

These premium ads look like the logical progression of content-based
advertising. The only slimy thing is them pretending to be randomly placed.

~~~
soared
Most respectable brands conform to AdChoices policies. If you click the little
blue triangle on an ad it will usually tell you how an ad was targeted to you.

------
zarkov99
If there was any question that the NYT is not a newspaper, at least in the
pre-internet sense of the word, this should put it to rest. The same kind of
shenanigans are at play in every news outlet I can think off. How does one
make sense of such a vast world when telling the truth is not profitable?

~~~
soared
> telling the truth is not profitable?

Where'd you get that idea? Plenty of newspapers tell the truth and still make
money. They do make a lot less than previously though.

~~~
zarkov99
Which ones?

------
spectramax
Why is the advertisement industry so sleezy and disgusting? Aren’t there any
sensible ways of putting your product or service out there without insane
advertisement strategies that invade privacy, cross ethical boundaries and
sometimes, literally illegal?

Advertisement is why we have privacy issues (the other being governments
spying on their people) and giant corporations based on targeted advertisement
business model. It’s sickening and people working in this profession should be
ashamed of themselves. Not to mention all the psychological tricks that go
into the “smell” of the store, deluding people into buying and then
underdelivering, buy one get one free, sales!!! sales!!! sales!!!, 20% off if
you sign up for a store credit card, etc. what happened to ethics and honesty
in doing business?

There has to be a more sensible way? Word of mouth, magazines, banners, trade
shows, demos, putting product on the shelf, etc aren’t good enough? I am not a
sales man but boy I despise that whole industry.

~~~
thomasahle
One of the dead comments in this thread calls for "criminalizing advertising".
I am quite positive to this idea myself. Does advertising really do anything
positive to the economy and the world? Doesn't the paradox of advertising
already prove that it is at best unnecessary?

Recently however I read about the time in the middle ages when guilts had
forbidden advertisement. They took this to such a degree, that if a merchant
would cough while a potential customer was walking nearby, the other merchants
would accuse him/her of trying to catch the attention of the passer-by.

Perhaps the reason we allow advertisement is just that we don't know how to
get rid of it. However, then we should certainly try to regulate it as much as
possible; make rules limiting it to the tolerable and perhaps undamaging.

Unfortunately, it may be that so many industries now depend on selling
adverts, that limiting it in any meaningful degree would be very hard
politically.

~~~
themacguffinman
Banning advertisement is fundamentally impossible in a free society because
advertising is speech. You can't stop people from persuading other people. You
can't realistically ban paid advertisement either, that just pushes it
underground because it's so valuable that people will find a way to pay for it
anyway. What you're asking for is a society free of financially-motivated
influence, and I don't think that has/can/will ever exist.

Even if you could get rid of advertising, that just cedes control of
advertising to random natural factors like geography or chance. It's not clear
to me how that's a better state of affairs.

~~~
thomasahle
The alternative wouldn't be chance. In the ideal world we would have unbiased
reviews to guide us.

I very much agree with you however. We can't ban it. It just practically isn't
possible. We should be able to regulate it though.

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sremani
This is not particular to NYT but when your news sources are A/B testing and
have information on your feelings, they will happily make up the news to
reinforce your confirmation bias.

The Royal Society's motto "nulius in verba" is becoming more true by day.

~~~
soared
> they will happily make up the news

How are you possibly making that claim? There is nothing to support that.

