Newspapers could actually try online

IN the myriad of — mostly misguided — solutions recently offered to save newspapers I’ve yet to see anyone suggest ways for newspapers to simply take better advantage of the situation they’re in. The reality is, tho they pontificate otherwise, newspapers have not really taken advantage of the web and the new medium that it offers. Even today, most newspapers aren’t putting a real effort into online news and that’s leaving them ill prepared for the “secular changes in the industry” that are helping to destroy them.
So here’s my radical idea: get serious about being in the online news space. Stop thinking some rich guy (or rich government) will save you and save yourself. Stop paying lip service to the web and start playing like you mean it. Here’s how:
First and foremost, recognize that the web is different from print and it really is its own “new” medium. It is not, as so many tend to think, simply a collection of “old” media all rolled up in one place, it’s something entirely new. This concept is really important as it is the foundation needed to build everything else on. Once this is really understood, traditional print operations can start to see where other changes need to be made.

Staffing. Because the web constitutes an entirely new medium, it needs an entirely new mindset. What has worked well for 20 years in print, might not work well online (and vice versa). You have to have the experience and skill with the medium to know the difference.
Most daily newspapers employ a talented print staff, on their second or third newspaper, and would never dream of throwing a brand-new, fresh off the truck, reporter into a senior editing or news decision roll. Yet they do it all the time in their online operations, seemingly grabbing whomever is walking by (or worse, some dreg that they can’t place anywhere else) and chucking them into an “online content editor” roll (or whatever it’s called at your paper). Then they mark it off on some checklist that they placed someone in an online position and sit back and wait for the web traffic (and revenue) to come rolling in. And they can’t figure out why is doesn’t work.
Look, most newspapers got onto the web in the mid 90s, this means there ought to be a fair number of people with nearly 10 years of online news experience — and on their second or third paper to boot — running around. Odds are they probably came originally from the print side as well. Why aren’t newspapers hiring them?
There is, of course, more to it than just raw years of service. You want people who are avid and active consumers of the online medium, just as traditional newspaper people are by nature avid and active consumers of newspaper products. I’m talking about people who can make good decisions about the value of a story online because they get that the web is different than print. They get that if a story plays out over time then it needs to be done in such a way that various RSS readers, mobile sites and whatever else comes a long needs to be able to update properly, as opposed to just posting a “write-thru”. I’m also talking about people who are active in both in the writing of and the consuming of blogs. I’m also talking about people actively involved in social sites like Facebook as well as being immersed in other aspects of the online medium (perhaps “how many RSS feeds are in your Google Reader?” might be a good interview question).
These are the people who will build and maintain a serious web presence.

Web Design. Hopefully your crack new web staff knows what should be obvious: newspapers websites suck. Why? Because they were built by newspaper people and follow that same potpourri newspaper model that works so well for, well, newspapers. Problem is, it is the modern equivalent of reading the newspaper on the radio in the 1930s.
Rip all that shit out. Adopt the topic or the storyline approach to better facilitate story-telling online. Also recognize that some stories destined for the newspaper, just might not attract anyone online, which is fine, so don’t post them.
Additionally deploy content using a more linear model. Most newspaper websites are a mishmash of headlines and ads all vying for the readers eye much like the physical newspaper, but resulting in nothing more that a cacophony of visual clutter. Streamline and simplify. I’ve seen newspaper website statistics that routinely show that the traffic on the average story page (or photo) is a miniscule percentage of overall site traffic. This isn’t the case with more linear blogs where article traffic is almost always commensurate with site traffic. This, to me, translates into gross inefficiency and lost traffic potential because stories are scattered all about
Also market your /news, /sports and other subsections directly and focus traffic to them, away from the busy mess that you still call a “homepage”. Not only does this increase you SEO, but it gives readers a reason to come back again and again as news and information updates because they’ll have something to follow. Or better still, design the site to automatically change, so during peak news events users never have to leave.
In short, tailor your web site for the web, not for the printed newspaper.

Workflow. Finally, with a more web savvy staff and a more web savvy site, you have one more dragon to slay: your heretofore broken story workflow. I’ve ranted about this before but even still, damn near every newspaper I’ve ever visited is still working with print-centric story workflows (nevermind the fact that most are also still working with 1990s technology).
Here’s a free tip: if you’re still automatically (or semi-automatically) shoveling content from the “print product” to the “web product” you’re doing it wrong. Just stop. Instead take advantage of the idea of “curation,” where your web editors — using that wealth of online experience you hired them for — pick and choose the best stories and present them in a way that will work well online. But make sure they’re pulling from a story pool before they are edited for print. Give them the tools to easily add web-centric content such as visualizations, embedded video, and yes cross-referenced hyperlinks to other content.
To do this, of course you’ll need a content management system that doesn’t suck as well, something most newspapers just don’t seem to have — either for print or online. Given the huge sums of money flushed each year into ineffective publishing systems and the man-hours used to apply duct-tape to them, I’d think there’d be substantial savings and improved efficiency all around if someone would take the time to invest in newer solutions. And there are newer solutions, especially for web content (and many are free).
Or, newspapers can continue to attempt to become more efficient in other ways, through cutbacks and layoffs, which work in much the same way that cutting off your fingers makes you a more efficient typist. It’s their call.
There is a sense of panic in the newspaper industry, that newspapers are dying, and even though newspapers have been ill for a lot longer than most people think, it has only been recently that real discussion about it has taken place. This gives me some hope, because maybe, just maybe the decision makers are finally ready to get serious about this newfangled web thing.

Source: lectroid.net

Reinventing the News

A couple of years ago, I had what might have been the coolest newspaper job on the planet. My paper, the News & Record in Greensboro, NC, began to remake its Web site as what we ended up calling the Town Square.
We intended to use interactive tools such as blogs and reader comments on stories, and to greatly enrich the appearance and usability of our site, to engage our readers more directly and collaboratively than the newspaper industry historically had done. And we wanted our readers involved as contributors. I was asked to report on how we might do it, and after I turned the report in I was assigned to begin acting on those recommendations.
We gathered suggestions from all over the country as I prepared the report. More started pouring in once I posted the report on my N&R blog. What we said we were going to do got a lot of attention – from our readers, from trade publications such as Editor & Publisher, on journalism blogs and in such general-interest publications as The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.
I'd love to say we made it all happen. We didn't. We did, however, learn some lessons. A lot of what we learned is specific to newspaper Web sites, but some of it could be valuable to people in other lines of work, particularly with respect to major projects that involve interacting with customers.

Leadership starts at the top - To get anywhere, the top person must buy into the project and take an active, visible role in making it happen. In particular, he or she needs to be blogging. The N&R's top editor, John Robinson, began blogging months before the Town Square project began, and even though some commenters argued with him, the fact that he was already blogging, and publicly approved my report, gave our plans some instant credibility both within the industry and within the already well-developed Greensboro blogging community.

… but it only starts there: Reward early adapters/adopters and, irrespective of their positions in the formal chain of command, channel their leadership in ways that recognize their value. Send them to training seminars with the understanding that when they return they'll be 1) using their skills and 2) teaching others what they have learned.

Invest. Baby steps aren't going to get you much here. Web guru Rob Curley has said that a project like this isn't about doing more with less, it's about doing more with more. Most newspaper Web sites need dramatic transformations, and adding a single position here or buying a single video camera for an entire newsroom won't cut it. Put the equipment in people's hands and train them.

Cast a wide net from the start. Make sure that everyone planning, executing and benefiting from the project has input from the beginning all the way through. Seek feedback every step of the way, particularly from readers. Doing that can build customer loyalty and can temper the tone of the (inevitable) criticism, making it easier for everyone involved to focus on the substance.
It also can help avoid costly delays. When we began our effort, a number of tech-knowledgeable people in our readership suggested we run our site with the open-source Drupal program. Instead, we went with a proprietary system that wouldn't do some of the most important things we wanted, like allowing reader comments on stories. We ended up switching to Drupal a couple of years later, but that time lost was time we couldn't make up.


Be nimble: Start small. Work fast. Fix things on the fly. Try something. If it works, scale it and, if you can, use feedback to perfect it. If it doesn't work, ditch it and move on.

Doing a lot of little things quickly, and making sure your audience knows you've done them, will buy you the time and, more importantly, the audience confidence you'll need during the long period between deciding to do big things and completing them. And audiences will forgive mistakes as long as you show you're learning from them.

Own the means of production: Programming and design; audio/video capture and editing capability; Flash expertise; posting capability – do not allow any of them to be controlled by anyone but News or your mission will bog down quickly.

If you're offered help, take it. No one will ever mistake Greensboro for Silicon Valley, but we nevertheless received offers of technical help in a variety of areas. Accepting that kind of offer will not only head off mistakes but also reinforce the notion that building a community Web site takes a community effort.

Measure as much as you can. Track story and blog page views. Don't let your news judgment be compromised by these numbers, but try to have something out front aimed at satisfying audience demand.

Find a way to say yes and to meet people where they are. You want to tell your community's stories. Your community wants its stories told. You're on the same side. Make it easy for people to post their news – whether text or multimedia – on your site. Offer training to people in the community who want to contribute but feel they lack the skills.

Underpromise and overdeliver. Anything involving computers always takes longer than you think it will.
When I left the paper earlier this month, we still had not completed some of the ambitious goals we set for ourselves four years ago. But our Web site was a different and much better place, and the work continues today.

Source: CIOInsight