Another week, another silly list.
It’s something that fills up every journalist’s inbox, all day, every day, every week, all year long.
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Companies of all sorts are using different public data sources, or wide ranging surveys (with very limited requirements) to declare what’s best, across different industries, or geographic areas. What’s the best school? Where should you retire? Who has the most golden doodles? Which emoji is used the most in your city?
Many news organizations eat this stuff up. It’s easy content. We’re guilty of this, too. We’ve been doing it for years. But it’s gotten out of hand. It’s doing more harm than good. And the motives behind the bombardment of rankings and declarations are questionable.
The WalletHubs of the world are churning out list after list, on topics they have no credibility on, deciding they are the authority on things like, the best places to raise a family. Many of these data points are unreliable and skewed.
We’ve posted lists like “the best school districts” or “the best cities to live” in Michigan, and you’d be shocked to find out -- they’re always in the areas with the highest median incomes. That’s not an indication of community strength, or talent, or even safety.
How can you tell someone their neighborhood is a bad one to live in by using Google trends and FBI data? It’s ludicrous.
These “data” companies are just playing the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) game. They’re hoping news stations turn their “studies” into news stories, with a link back to their websites. This, in turn, helps them rank higher in Google search when people are looking for actual services. Back-linking is one of the oldest SEO tactics out there.
Ken, why are you so angry? It’s Friday!
A list this week from U.S. News ranked the best states. We’ve covered this list in previous years. I’ll usually make some jokes about Ohio, it’s typically a good time.
This year, the list ranked Michigan the No. 41 best state, which is obviously wildly inaccurate. But it’s just the sort of headline U.S. News would love for us to write. Drive some outrage, drive some clicks and drive some back-linking back to them. I’m sure, as I’m writing this, that some other Michigan outlets have already done it.
Lists like this divide us, for no reason. No one is going to look at that list and decide they want to move to Utah. It only continues the drawing of battle lines through the media. And I won’t have it.
We don’t need to know the best college party town (they are all party towns), or who has the most loyal NFL fanbase (it’s the Lions). Not every single thing is a competition. Sometimes we just are who are we, and we’re proud of it. And that’s okay.
We can all live without this so-called information. And I think we’d all be better for it.