Writes Andy Bechtel:
As Henry Fuhrmann, the senior copy desk chief for the Web, told meon my first day: "Editing for online is like drinking water from a firehose."
And:
What should the centerpiece on the site's home page be right now? In 30 minutes? An hour? What news merits a post on a reporter's blog, and what is worth a full-fledged story? Or is there a difference? Which stories should allow reader comments, and how do we handle those comments on stories? The answers are evolving as the medium evolves and challenges our news judgment.
Among the otherlessons learned:
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- Prepare to work hard
- Be flexible
- Understand search engine optimization
In Newspapers need to pay closer attention to online comments Robert Niles admonishes reporters and editors to join the fray on the comment threads that develop from their articles online. Romanesko's summary:
"No one with authority stepped in to admonish the rude, correct those who posted wrong information, or to respond to those who had questions about the story," writes Robert Niles. "Reporters and editors need to stay engaged with a piece so long as people are commenting on it and linking to it. Otherwise, they are squandering their chance to use that amazing content as the foundation to build the communities that can sustain market success online."
(From Romanesko:)
That's what the Tribune's Bill Adee tells Michael Miner, who writes about the ugly comments posted on chicagotribune.com about violinist Rachel Barton Pine. Classical music critic Marc Geelhoed says this was a "puerile, pathetic discussion. ...Essentially, I'm arguing against the websites used by publications serving as places where people can make any comment they wish and expect that no one will find out who said it."
This post from Gerry McGovern is not new, but it's relevant as we consider how to think of what we do our our Web site. In short, we need to focus on what our audiences wants to do on our site, not on the content we should provide.
When we put the task at the center of the web management process, we cut away the clutter and the waffle. And we also—in a very real sense—put the customer at the center of the process. What we may find is that our most common tasks are useful for a wide range of customers. If so, we don’t need customer segmentation on the website. We just need to focus on the task and on making it easier and faster to complete.
My best hire ever, and former colleague, Danny Sanchez, has this take on Google's recent upgrade to deliver more targeted local news:
*Tap* *Tap* Is this thing on? — WE MUST START GEOCODING STORIES. Google is starting to do it. EveryBlock is already doing it really well. Topix sorta does it. A few others are doing it too. Groups of engineers have already written scrapes that scan the text of news stories. They’ve written algorithms that detect and process addresses for geocoding. Let’s not re-hash the whole newspapers-are-always-falling-behind speech; just get moving already.
I hear you, Danny. Been shouting it myself for the last couple years. But turn the mike up, because I worry that the people who need to know don't.