Discussion Roundup: Ways to Improve Newspaper Websites

Posted on August 31st, 2006
By Todd Zeigler in Media, Newspaper Study

There has been some good discussion around our post about how newspapers can improve their web presence. Below is a breakdown of additions to the list suggested (or inspired by) readers. Comments are mine unless otherwise indicated. I’ll update this post with new ideas I come across.

Original List

1. Start using tags.
2. Provide full text RSS feeds.
3. Work with external “social” websites.
4. Link to relevant blog entries.
5. Get rid of all registration.
6. Partner with local bloggers.
7. Offer alternative views of your content.
8. Modernize your site’s graphic design.
9. Learn from Craigslist.
10. Make your content work on cell phones and PDAs.

Additions

11. Allow Readers to Comment on Every Story [Via Micropersuasion]. I think this is a great idea although for some papers it may be unrealistic. It would take a lot of time to manage all the discussion that is generated. But if the paper can pull it off they should. It will help them build a Digg style community of users. This ties in to some good advice from Thomas Power: Become a social network.

Note: In our study we found that 13 of the top 100 U.S. papers were already doing this.

12. Improve Search Features [Henry Miller]. The search functionality on most newspaper sites is terrible. I actually resort to using Google News as an alternative if I’m looking for a particular story.

13. Use Better HTML [Joe Clark and Old Grouch]. From the looks of things, lots of papers haven’t jumped on the CSS bandwagon. Implementing cleaner HTML would improve load times for users and ultimately save money by reducing server load. A related issue noted by Angelos is the abuse of cookies by newspaper site. Why use five when one will do?

14. Focus on Local and Regional News [Mike Driehorst]. “Unless it’s of significant, historical or national importance, don’t put national/international news on your front page.” Most papers value is in their local coverage - focus on that.

15. Open Up Your Archives [Old Grouch]. Many papers only keep 10 days of content up on their sites and/or charge for older content. Making more of this content available for free would be a great service to researchers and also help serve up more page views.

16. Provide Multilingual Versions [Gabrielle Tonelli]. A few papers we looked at in California were doing this. It’s a good idea if it is economic feasible. The audience for every website is ultimately global.

17. Offer Supplemental Content [Bruce Bartlett]. Reporters do loads of research when writing stories. Why note post some of the extra stuff on your website? Bruce writes that it “would both make the web site more valuable and improve the credibility of newspapers. It’s really insane to just reprint the same material that is in the print edition.”

18. Open Up the Letter to the Editor Process [Building on #17]. Why not just post every letter you receive instead of just the 2/3 that make the cut for the print edition? Associate them with the relevant article and let us know which articles are getting the most comments. This would have the effect of turning your site into a townhall of sorts. Only problem with this is that many letters come in still via regular mail instead of electronically.

Thanks for all the comments/ideas. Please post additional ideas below and I’ll update this entry periodically.

| Trackback URL |

Trackbacks/Pings

Comments

Joe Wikert

August 31st, 2006 at 10:05 am

Hi Todd. This is a great list. I too have been using my own blog (jwikert.typepad.com) to pitch some ideas for the newspaper industry. One of the more recent ones, and worthy of your list, is the notion of creating a mini-issue in downloadable (PDF) format that’s fully customizable. I talked about it on this post, and now I see that the Toronto Star is about to implement it next month (see this post).
fgb

August 31st, 2006 at 11:12 am

Regarding #11, I doubt many newspapers will do this, especially after the comment brouhaha at The Washington Post over a posting about the Abramoff scandal, and the human resources required to moderate comments and comment spam. Would expect to see more adoption of the Technorati plug-in showing who’s blogging about the article, as The Wahington Post currently does.
Bob Stepno

August 31st, 2006 at 6:13 pm

Re.#12 Free archives are a lot to ask for, especially when some papers have outsourced the job of managing those archives to profit-minded companies for a piece of the action… but I’d sure like to see more "subscribe and get free archives" offers, or a more rational "micropayment" pricing schedule. The old saw was "yesterday’s news wraps today’s fish," but today many Daily Fishwrappers expect readers to pay five or ten times the price of the original newspaper for one story from its archives, often one found by a hit-or-miss search! It’s not as if the companies were sending checks to the reporters who (work-for-hire) wrote those stories years (or decades) ago. For comparison, the New Yorker is now selling its full archive — 80+ years of the scanned magazine — for less than $75. More about digital archives at http://tinyurl.com/zlpxt
Bob Stepno

August 31st, 2006 at 6:16 pm

oops, I meant Re#15
Todd Zeigler

August 31st, 2006 at 6:57 pm

Bob,

You are right - opening up the archives is probably too much to ask. My local paper, the Washington Post, charges $3.95 per article for content older than 60 days. Obviously these are prices aimed at businesses s and not normal people. You also have companies paying Factiva and Lexis a small fortune for access to this stuff.

Opening up archives would also cut into reprint business. Why pay for a reprint if you can just link to an article indefinitely. The New York TImes charges $1,000 a year to publish articles.

Thanks for the comment.
Tom Britt

September 1st, 2006 at 6:57 am

Great ideas, if you can get them to do it. Problem is this: anything they do online for free takes away resources, revenues, and eyeballs away from what makes them money—print newspapers. Funny how Gannett bought all the local newspapers when the price was right and canned all the independent editors that had that local voice. Now, they are trying to stretch their staffs to cover that local voice again. I think most people can see past that. We are witnessing that here in Indianapolis with the Indianapolis Star now trying to be the Carmel Star, Fishers Star, and Geist Star. If you want to read more about my local newsletter (not newspaper) experiment, check out http://tombritt.com. Great blog, I’m subscribing to your RSS now.
Andy Mabbett

September 1st, 2006 at 8:16 am

Oh for goodness sake!

1) Use valid HTML

2) Serve it correctly

3) Meet WAI WCAG to at least level 2 (”AA”)

4) Use stylesheets, poperly, to separate content from presentation.

Everything else is just smalltalk, in comparison.
haydn

September 1st, 2006 at 8:53 am

Tom Britt has this about right - though they are also making money from websites, the industry is driven by a body count mentality. A paper I write for is massively profitable and laying people off, again. And when you see social networking appear you tend to think, as a journalist I see them getting free content, as a blogger I want to be a part of it, as a reader… I’m not too sure I care for all this.
Todd Zeigler

September 1st, 2006 at 9:25 am

Haydn - if done correctly my theory is that taking these steps will turn some folks from passive readers into members of a community built around the newspaper website. And even folks who don’t blog or comment on stories will spend more time on the sites because the content will be more compelling.
horgl

September 1st, 2006 at 1:21 pm

I just detected another important thing - the layout.
I have the problem with IE that the box "about this blog" is hiding parts of the article on this side
Kevin Hood

September 1st, 2006 at 10:06 pm

I would like to know how many people are actually paying to read the old content on newspaper websites. Besides a few competing newspapers trying to spy and copy old stores, I doubt it is a big source of revenue. Opening up the old articles to all, especially people who don’t subscribe, will allow for more discussion and interest in the website / newspaper. The key is to allow comments on all articles and post the most recent comments at a focal point of the website. Comments posted about old articles that lurkers find is great for any website and continues discussion - new content for free.
I was surprised how many of the tips were the same - talk to bloggers. Bloggers are chatty and can provide free content, but more than likely they are going to stick to their own blog unless you are giving them prominent links and promotion. Typically, bloggers are talking about a niche - technology, journalism, being a house wife, and it’s not great content for the masses. The better idea, as Todd alluded, is to get the community involved. The local folk, not the weirdo computer geek bloggers who are typically on their computer and not in the community. Neighbors, community leaders, business owners . . . if you can get them engaged you have a real online local community, which could almost stand by itself without a newspaper . . . but you need the "paper" to make paper (dollars that is).
Cem Basman

September 3rd, 2006 at 12:12 pm

All of the above in your list is true for press releases, too! Sometimes I believe press officers have never heard of the internet or any digital revolution yet … Everybody who releases a message to the press today in a PDF format should be divided in to four parts after being tarred and feathered!
Fernando Zamith

September 15th, 2006 at 6:02 pm

19 - Give links to the original sources.
Mary Specht

October 23rd, 2006 at 3:14 pm

Use Flash for video.

If video is a hassle for users to play–i.e., it requires Windows Media, RealPlayer or another specific player–it doesn’t add any value to your site because no one will click on it.

This isn’t my original idea. Amy Gahran posted about this on the Poynter Institute’s excellent E-Media Tidbits blog, but it’s worth repeating here.

You can find Amy’s original posting at http://www.poynter.org/column......aid=112028

2007
Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

2006
Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

2005
Jan	Feb	Apr	May	Jun	Jul
Aug	Sep	Nov	Dec

2004
Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Nov	Dec

2003
Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec