Conversation

A thing that computer technology killed before most of you were probably even born is now an artifact of newspaper history: the "bus plunge story." Let's discuss it in a short thread (🧵).

Back in Ye Olden Days, when you flipped through a print newspaper, you'd come across an extremely brief news item. Here's a real example, from the New York Times of July 21, 1964:

BUS PLUNGE KILLS 8
Las Palmas, Canary Islands, July 20 (UPI)—Eight persons perished today when a small bus plunged over a 300-foot cliff into the sea near the town of Mogan. One man jumped from the vehicle before it reached the edge and was saved. All the victims were Spaniards.

These came to be known as "bus plunge stories," because they were so often about, well, buses plunging off a cliff somewhere.

But why would readers of the New York Times care about a bus going off a cliff in the Canary Islands?

The short answer is, they didn't. The bus plunge story wasn't there for the reader; it was there for the paper's editors.