Slashdot Mirror
Why Haven't Online Newspapers Gotten it Right?
An anonymous reader writes "Kirk McElhearn, writing at Kirkville, discusses why he thinks that online newspapers aren't up to snuff. While his article reflects an "old-fashioned" way of looking at newspapers, that is by reading them on paper as opposed to on the web, many of his points are valid. Most newspaper web sites are poorly designed, and don't easily inspire readers to read their content. He doesn't offer any solutions (other than getting rid of ads to make stories more readable) but the issues he raises do merit reflection by newspapers and other websites with large amounts of content."
...and I wrote a letter about it. No response yet.
I think it's pointless to make on-line versions of newspapers mirror their printed counterparts. As was said, given the variablitlity in the technologies, platforms, and browsers, there can be no imposition of style that will work on all devices and in all markets. It's the same as this relentless drive to make a Linux desktop look like Windows; you can copy the look and feel, but you chain yourself to a set of requirements that are increasingly hard to maintian.
What is needed is perhaps some new newsreading device/software, specially designed with newspapers (and perhaps TV news) in mind, to deliver news content. An upgraded version of RSS, accessible through the news-browser, which being a single-purpose entity, could be stripped of all the crap that tends to clog regular browsers and would provide standardized, contextualized formatting. Add in some CSS-like directives to allow news outlets to customize their output and you're all set.
The one thing I want to see go is online registration. I don't have to register with anyone to buy my paper at the newsstand.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
But these same features are their downfall: readers of online media don't all see the same news, since they can customize what they want to see, and since many newspaper web sites display stories according to what readers have seen before; stories may change from hour to hour, even from minute to minute, so different readers will see different versions of stories.
This huge advantage of online media prevents debacles like "Dewey defeats Truman" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_E._Dewey from lasting more than a few minutes.
I've found that setting up the User Agent Switcher extension with a Googlebot profile will let you into many news sites with no problems. For the ones where it doesn't work, bugmenot usually does the trick.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
Because most companies get confused with decisions that let them choose between having a useful, profitable business and doing something that the decision-maker wants to be done for one reason or another.
-because their advertisers/parent company demand it (full-page flash ads, registration)
-they want to push an agenda (This week's editorial: Goofus and Gallant, staring Billy Boy and Linus Torvalds)
-plain ignorance (Physical newspapers don't sort articles by date/time, so we don't need to either)
-religion gets in the way (We won't publish news about white house scandal X because we beleive in magic sky being Y)
And that's just off the top of my head.
And how long until bugmenot.com offers registration information for people who can't be arsed to pay the viewing fee?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
The newspapers are too trapped in the old paradigm of finding news and deciding what to write about. Instead they should open up the flood gates and let the readers decide what they want to hear about. While that idea will sound horridly scary to editors who's job it normally is to pick stories, allowing your users the interactive choice will increase readership.
Which would you want? A newspaper that picked stories based on what they thought would get readers, or one that listened to what you actually wanted to read about.
Niche content wins online.
That's pretty annoying, but they made it easy to close. I agree with the "use printer friendly version" comment to avoid ads (on sites where that's available). I'm surprised more folks haven't made the connection.
Once upon a time I made daily visits to my local paper's online site. It was a pretty straightforward interface that allowed me to browse all of the major headlines as I scrolled down the page. Then one day, they redesigned their site, segmenting more of the content and filling the first half of the initial page load to PDF links to section covers. I bailed fast and made my way to the competing paper across the river (Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota still has two daily rags). While not my preferred news source, it was easy to navigate and I could, once again, scroll down a single page with the primary headlines (similar to the layout here at Slashdot). Then, this year, they had to muck with things, too, and now the main online page is laid out in a fashion similar to the physical paper. I sent them a long message describing what worked with the old site, and what (imo) didn't with the new. No luck there. I want to find information by a quick run through a page. I don't want to pay attention to call-out boxes and other areas where they place content. If it is important, give it to me in one smooth-scrolling column. That said, I will still visit the local paper sites if there are specific things I am looking for (e.g. news on a fire in the neighborhood), or if I am completely bored out of my skull. Otherwise, I skip them entirely. If I want news, I'll either create a custom topic on Google News (news.google.com), or I'll hit one of the big network homepages to monitor developing stories. On a side note, it would be interesting to see how TV stations scramble to adjust their content, since you can read about most of the general news they report hours or days before their telecasts.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Young people embrace media that is directly interactive (blogging), searchable (google) or which is minimalist but can be snapped together in custom ways (rss based services like podcasts and news feeds). I don't think young people even watch TV nearly as much as middle aged people did at their age.
Exactly why I don't bother with newspapers, even online ones. Newspapers are trying to stick to a pay model which doesn't work in the modern day age. People don't want to pay for content, let alone *old* content. Newspapers have their "free" logins that let you read their content for a short time. Then they want to charge you money (and sometimes quite a bit of it) to search their archives for older content. Personally, it's not worth it when I can get the same content (and sometimes *better* content with discussions from various sources of more worth) for free via Google.
TV, is the same way. They don't usually even offer archived content, let alone searchable/free. Google is trying to, although IMHO failing at this time, have that content be available online and be searchable but I just don't see it working at this time. CurrentTV has a workable model that I enjoy and even though some of the "pods" are blatant advertising I do appreciate being able to search for and watch what I saw on TV before -- sometimes even the clips I watched. Now THAT is what I want to see.
Want to get me back watching TV news? Look at CurrentTV and build something even better. Want me to read newspapers online? Make the content free, searchable, and easily accessable even when it's archived. Don't like the fact that you have to pay for that? Fine, but remember that you time is running out.
Ever been to the BBC's news website?
That's right: no registration, no donations, no adverts. Do you think they 'don't give a shit'?
Of course they give a shit. They may not give much shit about people who come in from abroad, but they care about people coming in from the UK, because without our continued support they won't get their license fee renewed. You may call it 'socialism' if you want to, but it works - the world gets a high quality, relatively unbiased and incorruptible news source because it's overall trustworthiness makes the people of Britain happy to pick up the tab. No commercial news source could do this.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
I'm sorry, but WTF?
1) If Javash^Hcript is disabled, nothing renders.
2) "without reloading the HTML page..." -- ah, I see, I download the entire article, and rather than using this perfectly functional mousewheel, or this perfectly functional scrollbar, for this one site, I have to click "next" half a dozen times -- in order to still never be able to view the entire article at once. In other words, you've added state to a web page that has no state. This is an improvement?
> IHT is an exemplary site. I won't compare their content but as far as design and usability is concerned, they are the #1 Newspaper site on the web today.
In an ideal universe, how many times did you expect me to click "next" to read your Slashdot article? This thread?
The IHT's actually got pretty good content -- but as far as design and usability are concerned, I actually consider them the #1 example of how online newspapers haven't gotten it right. The IHT's UI is proof positive that even when a newspaper isn't trying to maxmimize banner impressions (via the unnecessary and annoying separation of articles into "pages") or gather demographic data (via equally-annoying registration links), they're still stuck in dead-tree mode. In short - IHT Doesn't Get The Web, and that layout of theirs is proof that they never will.
Secondarily, an average newspaper page is what, 17x22 per page, 22x34 unfolded? Which allows detailed halftone and color pictures alongside the data, and still leaves room for the all important revenue producing ads. The average home computer screens is maybe 12x15 max, or half the size, but instead of a dot being 1/200 of an inch, the dot resolution on a monitor is usually set to 1/72 if I remember right. So the newspaper page has what, 18x the "pixel" data space?
These two publication worlds are apples and oranges, and it takes a very clever web design team and a great journalism team to approximate the best part of the newspaper world (dynamic and relevant content + strong fact checking) delivered on an edition basis. Can't say that I have seen that particular combination done very well online myself.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
I used to work in a big newspaper. This is all just my personal opinion and nonsensical rantings. Don't sue me.
A website's editorial content or journalistic determination isn't the problem. Despite hard working researchers and reporters, more than 90% of the news came from the people. Press releases, internal leaks, revelations about a competitor. The news flowed in to the fax machines and telephones like a sewer. The editorial and journalist jobs were filtering the garbage, checking for bias and veracity, and then making it understandable. Other than a few high profile "investigative reports" the newspaper got exclusive tips because people go out of their way to pass them on to a big audience publication. Some people read the paper for those "breaking news" stories. And because the newspaper has an established audience, it will continue to get the juicy news tidbits. Having seen so much crap and biased stories, the editors on the paper are better at throwing away crap before it runs. A news website that runs an "Exclusive" because of a tip from a competitor that doesn't deal with 500 hot tips a day may be really running an exclusive tip, but more than likely is being played like a piano.
There's also a lack of trust about the web. Yes, even today. Let's look at coupons. The Sunday paper always sold bigger than any other because of the massive coupons enclosed. Most of them were crap and really only designed as feedback that "Yes, your ads are being seen" to the retailers. In fact, it seems that a web coupon would work better because it could be customized with a serial number and much more information encoded about the viewer. The problem is that consumers think of coupons as money. They ones that are printed in color on high-gloss, heavy weight paper are thought of as more valuable than the black and white newsprint ones even if they offer the same value. If that's your attitude, what would you think of a coupon that you printed out yourself on your own printer? Even if it had a barcode, unique id's, and far more valuable information to the retailer about your statistics, most people would view these "print it yourself" coupons as just one step up from counterfeiting or writing "Save 20%" on a piece of notebook paper. Worthless. There are still many people who bend over backwards to clip and save "real" coupons and this still offers real feedback about the value of newspaper advertising today. Even with the great improvement offered by the web, it's not a trend that's going to be changed without a lot of re-education.
Many websites I've seen have a determined and energetic editorial crew. That's great, but the news stories and editorials people write are just the bait. They aren't what keeps the reader coming back. People who don't understand the difference are confusing the journalistic content with the data content of a paper. For example, back in the eighties when I used to be big into comic books there was a newspaper called the Comic Buyer's Guide. No idea if it's still around today, but it was a weekly paper that offered editorial content about trends in comics, reviews, highlights of new writers and artists, interviews. Most of this very niche content were opinions I agreed with or subjects I wanted to read, but a big portion of the paper was the release schedules of when Marvel and DC would be putting out the next crossover series. I may have started picking up the paper because of the big Alan Moore or George Perez interview, but I became a regular reader because I got my lists of upcoming comics from them. Heck, even after I started to disagree with their attitudes and editorial stances, I still picked it up because of the data dump I was familiar with. The data dumps in newspapers are the sports scores, television listings, movie schedules, stock market results and many more. This data can today be dumped into the newspaper with no human intervention so it's very lucrative. Even some things like the personals, comics, horoscopes, and paid obituaries are set up to be constructed in a sim
I was talking this morning with a journalist of the old school who really understands layout, and in fact we were discussing the new Guardian format. He was describing how, in effect, the constraints of point by point layout for offset printing, and the need to design physical pages, mean that until people have years of experience with a new format they cannot get the best out of it. He thinks that the new Guardian layout will be really good in a few years...but for now, some content is being sacrificed to the need to fit the page layout blocks of the format.
So why is this precise newspaper layout required? Partly for visual effect, of course, for the minority of people who have the necessary visual skills to appreciate it. But partly to produce something that can be read by the target audience. Because the audience cannot change the face and style to suit their requirements, it is hard to produce a one size fits all. The front page of a paper newspaper has to meet many conflicting requirements and so always is a compromise.
Sometimes, of course, the front page is a thing of beauty where the images and the headlines join up to support the meaning of the stories. But how often does that happen nowadays? I could go on, but you've made the points already.
Pining for the fjords