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Washington Post Reviews its 10 Years on the Web
anaesthetica writes "The Washington Post is featuring three stories today reviewing their experience in adapting the "old media" to the new environment of the web. The first article examines their revelation that 'The news, as "lecture," is giving way to the news as a "conversation".' The second looks at the 'Kaiser memo' which served as the germinating point for what would become WashingtonPost.com, phrased in language that today seems amusingly quaint. The final article looks at the death of traditional print newspapers as consumers flock to internet sources for their news."
I would start reading them. Instead, I keep going back to the BBC.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
Now, I think the fundamental problem with this metaphor is that frogs have no business swimming in the sea, electronic or otherwise. That should be left to select e-turtles.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
1992? What a joke! The folks at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, with help from some local techies, produced "the world's first electronic newspaper" in 1982!
From the usual source:
1992... we had y'all beat by ten years.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
The rise of the internet news over newspaper has meant far more than just a different format for the delivery of news. It has meant that far more than in the past news is being delivered by wire services like Reuters, AP, AFP etc. This is fine as far as it goes, but as wire services can deliver news cheaply to many different sites, it makes for some pretty uniform coverage of many events. Websites can't afford to send their own reporters, so are increasingly relying on the wires to do the leg work for them. Just take a look at Google News any day of the week to see how many of the stories are exactly the same. I love reading my favourite news online, but I rue the day that great newspapers become a conduit for delivering the wires withough delving into the investigative pieces that truly change society.
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
The Icelandic morning newspaper, Morgunblaðið started their online edition in 1995 i think.
Does anyone want to top that?
As a New Yorker, I started out reading mostly the New York Times. However Wapo has consistently led in innovations in the industry. Coupled with their world class journalism, blogs, all kinds of reader feedback, and most importantly -- leaving the content free, has let me to turn to them as must read on my long list of news sources each morning.
The NY Times has walled off their editorial and I have seen my interest in the paper slowly wane.
Happy 10 years Wapo!
Newsfollow.com
That would be once for my laptop, once for my desktop system, once for my primary machine at work, once for the kiosk in the server room, twice for the kiosks in the lab...all being redone every time I clean out the cookies.
But the problem is it's not just the Post. There's all these newspapers doing it. Repeatedly, I've had people send me links to what I would assume are interesting stories...only to be hit with a registration page. If I'm not willing to put up with the hassle for my local paper, I'm sure not going to bother for the West Bumfuck Tribune out of Idaho. CNN, Fox News(1), ABC News, even MSNBC aren't doing registrations, so guess who gets my traffic.
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(1) Yeah, like I'd really follow Fox News.
The alternative is even worse, and it ain't bloggers.
Not sure about everyone else, but I still subscribe to the paper New York Times. I read it on the way into work, I read it in the hammock in the back yard, I read it in Starbucks. Having the electronic version available is great if I want to copy or reference something on my computer, but as far as "getting" my news goes, its still the paper version for me.
"We learned a major lesson -- neither your server nor your vendor should be so far away that you can't kick them."
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
But that's exactly what's wrong with so many news-ish web sites. I don't want to have to wade through an unqualified conversation about facts and events, I simply want the facts. At least on slashdot there is a moderation system, and a pretty good understanding of the prevailing local culture - that means that when I want a "conversation" about the news, I can come and get one. Or go elsewhere. For a hoot, I could go to Drudge as a springboard to all sorts of spun conversations.
But a first rate "news" source (like the front page of the WP) shouldn't require me to wonder who is conversing with whom, that particular day. The Washington Post is my "local" paper, here in suburban Maryland. My gut sense, having read the paper for over 30 years, is that the web-based conversation they are now hosting has been eroding their editorial spine. Ironically, I've traditionally disliked their editorial positions - but they were consistent, and I had a sense of how that was going to shape their coverage decisions. Now, they seem to be thrashing around quite a bit.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I lived in Washington DC from July 1996 to August 1998, then from December 1999 to August 2005--a total of about seven years. During all that time, I subscribed to both the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal; both would come every morning by 6 am, and I would eat breakfast standing up and going through both papers pretty thoroughly--paging through every section, scanning headlines, reading articles that interested me. I did this in spite of reviewing an increasing number of on-line news sites and blogs each day.
..bruce..
I moved to Parker, Colorado, in August 2005. Parker is about 25 miles from downtown Denver. My WSJ delivery shifted from early morning to coming in the mail--which meant that I got each day's edition in the afternoon, if I got it at all (sometimes it wouldn't come until the next day). I didn't even try to get the WP; instead, I signed up for a 'weekend' subscription to the Rocky Mountain News (largely for movie listings). And when my WSJ subscription came up for renewal, I let it lapse for this simple reason: by the time the WSJ came and I had a chance to read it, I had already been exposed to most of the news stories that interested me via the web.
I now have in my bookmarks roughly 140 news, information, commentary and blog sites, all of which I review at least once a day, and about 25% of which I review multiple times a day. I miss having the Post and the WSJ at my door before 6 am each morning; navigating their web sites is not as easy as reading the newspaper, and could I get them here that early, I would still subscribe to both, even at the combined rate of $200-300/year. But getting the WSJ in mid-afternoon just isn't worth it, and the Post would be even more delayed. So after a lifetime of reading newspapers (I'm 53), I've largely given up on them.
Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
Reminds me of a minister leading off a church newsletter by saying "Some feel that the church is old-fashioned in today's modern fast-paced world, but starting next month we are going to make use of contemporary technology to spread the Good News and help parishioners stay in touch. Yes, we are going to put a up what is known as 'web site' on the international communications system known as the Internat. Any one with a 'modem' will be able to 'download' our newsletters. It is not so different from the letters Paul used to communicate with the early churches, but instead of ink and paper we will use electrons moving at the speed of light."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
As you may note from my nic, I am a more than casual consumer of the media. I have been working as a journalist for 11 years. I have worked for newspaper, wire services, websites and on radio. You are correct in saying there has been a general rise in the use of wires in news print as well. The difference is that so many internet sites want to have 24-hour coverage, which papers don't traditionally offer. The only way they can be expected to do this without costs blowing out is by utilising wire services. I think in part the rise in wire services in newspaper is because they have been putting so much of their resources into unprofitable websites that they have had to cut back on staff in the print editions. This is almost certainly the case in Australia, although I am not sure if the same has occurred in America.
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
The Icelandic morning newspaper, Morgunblaðið started their online edition in 1995 i think.
The Arizona Daily Star launched May 5th 1995.
The Washington Post is an excellent newspaper with an outstanding editorial staff. It's a shame that their website wastes the paper's editorial resources.
Start with the home page. It's impossible to scan the thing. There are a few big stories at the top of the page, and then the bottom of the page falls into a huge morass of links arranged in multiple columns. The eye gets lost in this junkpile, and the little five-word headlines generally provide no context for the stories. Why don't these guys look at online-only news sites, like CNET News.com or Yahoo News? They're much better organized and easier to scan for interesting news.
Bad layout isn't all that's bad about the website though. Take the ads for example. You'd think that with the registration data they demand from users, they could serve targeted, useful ads. Nope--instead I always get the same ads for mortgage refinancing--how useful for an apartment dweller. Or you'd think that they could use the content of the news stories to serve up targeted ads--wouldn't advertisers pay a lot for that? If I'm reading, say, a story about computers, serve up computer ads; or if I'm reading Steve Barr's "Federal Diary" column, serve up ads for federal employees' health insurance? Hasn't the Post learned anything from Google? Nope--it's always the mortgage refinancing ads. And these guys wonder why they're not making any money on the Web?
Useless ads wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so irritating. All the Post's pages are littered with ads. They figure that annoying pop-ups aren't enough, so recently they started these irritating Flash ads that creep out, seizing a third of your browser window before receding. Are they trying to make it annoying? Is that what they've learned from powerhouse ad sellers like Google--annoying ads work? Did they really make that much money selling X10 camera ads?
I look at the Post website because they still have the best local DC coverage. I avoid the Post website for anything else--sure, the Post covers the White House the best, but the AP does almost as good a job and I can get their stuff on the annoyance-free Yahoo News. The Post is intent on annoying its users with cluttered pages and as long as that's the case, craigslist and Google will eat them alive in the online world.
Penny - plain text accounting