Letter from the editor: Bluesky panned a column without reading it

The headline drove negative reposts, while the attention drove readers to the site

---

There’s this Oscar Wilde quote that public relations people love to use: “There’s only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

Of course, Oscar Wilde did not live in the time of social media.

The March issue of The Word, a magazine that is about the intersection of accessibility and journalism, had several fantastic pieces: a first-person account of what it’s like to start a newsletter on platforms like Substack if you are blind and another article that looked at a trauma program for reporters.

Yet, one column caught the attention of Bluesky users. It was an article that talked about using form and layout in long-form journalism to improve readability from a columnist who knows his stuff when it comes to accessibility in text and form. In fact, he writes every month about improving accessibility in journalism. He usually offers helpful hints, never taking a negative spin or placing blame.

Akinyele Michael is someone looking to bring people in through ideas. He makes accessibility seem reasonable, easy, and doable. He never scolds.

Michael wrote the subhead, and I added the headline.

On Thursday, March 5, I sent the March edition of The Word, including Michael’s article, out into the world.

The next morning, I awoke to a growing number of reposts on Bluesky of Michael’s article. It soon became clear that almost no one was reading the column. Most were just looking at the headline. In fact, actually, they weren’t even reading the headline.

The headline read, “Attention: most people won’t finish your 3000 word article” — with finish being the operative word. It seemed people were missing or not reading the word finish.

They were reading as “Attention: most people won’t ‘read’ your 3000 word article.”

As the repost number reached 100 and then exceeded it, I noted most people were convinced the column was arguing not to write long-form. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

In fact, Michael had argued that long-form is still very necessary as a type of journalism.

Michael did a great job of noting that language in long-form journalism should be clear and engaging because, as we know, attention span in reading is highly linked to reader cognition.

He also noted that using subheads to break up text into sections will help fight reader fatigue. This is true, especially as we know there is a battle for our attention, especially as we tend to read on our computers or phones where dings, beeps, and pings interrupt nonstop. Breaking up text is akin to pausing a lecture for interaction or questions, which we know improves attention.

Sadly, of the more than 100 reposts, I can count on one hand how many people probably read the article since most accused Michael of writing about how people shouldn’t write long-form or how writers should shorten articles —  neither of which he did.

Again, I’ll reiterate, he argued for the necessity of long-form reporting, and gave ways to improve layout, design, and keep readers engaged and reduce reader fatigue in his push to improve accessibility.

On an up note, those 100 reposts did drive more than 800 readers to the article in just one day. (While we don’t track IP addresses, but we do track from where traffic comes, such as from a link on Bluesky, and we track how long that referred entity is on the page.)

So thank you to all those reposters for driving all those readers to Michael’s column who might not otherwise have read it. Certainly, it was a bit of circus, but P.T. Barnum once said, “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.”

---

Stacy Kess is the chief of editorial for Equal Access Public Media. She previously worked as an editor and reporter at papers across the U.S. Find her on Bluesky at @stacykess.

---