The bad and the ugly of Northwest newspaper Web sites
We're asking for your input with a Crosscut reader survey, so we thought we'd offer some advice ourselves – to the regional papers we're reading online.
By Chuck Taylor
September 13, 2007.
As our publisher, David Brewster, mentioned a couple of days ago, we're conducting Crosscut's first annual reader survey, and we'd appreciate your feedback. The response so far has been great, but the more the better, sample size and all that. Bring it on! Mission not yet accomplished!
People have been clicking on the online survey and also leaving comments on David's earlier post, and as is usual here on Crosscut, the level of civility and thoughtfulness is inspiring.
All the feedback got me thinking about the past five months since we launched Crosscut, and I thought it might be helpful if we provided some feedback, too – to some of the other Web sites we've been reading. My biggest concern lies with the mainstream newspaper sites, having worked in print for more than 30 years. I want them to thrive. They're the journalism outlets doing the heavy lifting. But their business model is in crisis, and they aren't reacting fast enough to the online onslaught.
Every day, I get up at 5 a.m., walk across the hall, and start reading the news from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia, Montana, and Alaska. I also quickly scan the national papers for news about the Northwest. Yes, during this early portion of my workday I am in my bathrobe. You would be, too.
I choose up to a dozen top stories I deem essential or compelling, write headlines and summaries, and post them in the far-left column of every page in a feature we call Top of the News. Lesser but noteworthy stuff I post in Clicker, a more-frequently updated news tool which can be found at the top of the home page and, in its entirety, on this page.
Later in the morning, our assistant editor, David Neiwert, logs in and picks up the scan of news and blogs around the region and continues to update the site. Crosscut gets up at 5 a.m. and works all day long so you don't have to! Oh, did I mention we're conducting a reader survey?
So here's what I'm finding: With a couple of exceptions, newspaper Web sites in the Northwest are doing their content a great injustice. One could conclude that the editors running these sites aren't online news consumers themselves, because a lot of what they're doing makes no sense at all. But the truth probably is they know exactly how screwed up their sites are and are doing their best in the face of insufficient tools, lack of staff, and incompetence back at corporate headquarters.
We readers don't really care what their excuses are, though, do we? Let the flogging begin.
It's not news until we get around to posting it: How dare you expect to read the news in the afternoon or evening. These are morning papers! That's when the news will be ready for you.
An exception is the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which posts articles as they clear the copy desk in the late afternoon and evening. Bravo! The Seattle Times, otherwise the best local-newspaper Web site in the region, doesn't get this. While breaking stories get posted as they're available, routine news and features go live sometime after midnight, all at once. Why?
The News Tribune in Tacoma freshens its site even later, sometime after I get up in the morning, so I check it last. Not the best way to influence the regional agenda – or the D.C. congressional delegation. But the worst example of timelessness is the Eugene Register-Guard, which posts the news at noon. On purpose. Let that be lesson to those of you who don't subscribe to the dead-tree edition.
If you aren't a paying subscriber, we don't want you as a reader: Or we're going to let you read only some of our stories. The Spokane Spokesman-Review and the British Columbia edition of the Toronto Globe and Mail do this. If you don't want the Spokesman-Review print edition, you can pay $7 a month to get full online access. Otherwise, you can only read the top stories. Besides this being an odd price point, it's kind of a regressive policy for a paper that otherwise is an online innovator. I can watch the daily news planning meeting for free, live, but I can't read all the stories?
Some of the smaller papers limit all content to print subscribers or charge for online access. These include the jointly owned Lewiston Morning Tribune ($7 a month for online only) and the Moscow-Pullman Daily News ($6 a month). Maybe this is working for them revenue-wise, with those fees more than compensating for fewer advertising impressions, but it's not working for me. The Skagit Valley Herald used to do this but recently opened its Web site to everyone. Smart move, I say.
Do not discuss amongst yourselves: Few newspapers let readers comment at the bottom of articles. (A notable exception is the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.) The most important, distinguishing content on a newspaper's Web site usually is behind glass. Attention newspaper editors: If you don't let your readers comment on and discuss your news stories, someone else will. It's already happening on blogs and news aggregation sites.
We can't be bothered to post all these pictures: This is a real puzzler. Papers as big as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Spokane Spokesman-Review don't post all of their photos online, or do so in postage-stamp form, or only on index pages. The P-I has been improving in this regard, but the S-R's failure to leverage photography is particularly puzzling, given its willingness to experiment with live and edited video. The Oregonian in Portland has great photos online, but they reside in a special tool apart from the stories they illustrate. The Web is giving new life to still photography. It's low-bandwidth content you already have in electronic form. You're paying a lot of people to take these photos. Let us see them!
Hey, now that we have blogs, we can post all that stuff that wasn't newsworthy enough to make it into the real paper: Too many newspaper blogs are cluttered with rewritten press releases and get-a-load-of-this time-wasters. Break some news! For a lesson on how to do a newspaper blog right, read Geoff Baker, John Cook, David Postman, and Todd Bishop. Frequent, fresh, informative. Often their posts wind up becoming conventional news stories, because they're actually practicing journalism with their blogs. Baker stands apart in the way he engages his readership. Alternative newspapers like The Stranger and Seattle Weekly often beat the dailies with news on their blogs, which are in some cases the most-read online content they offer.
Comments:
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 12:33 a.m. Inappropriate
But I do like the PI because of the Soundoff feature where you can post comments. The blogs on the Kitsap Sun are fun too. Most of the time I get a laugh over what people are saying. The rest of the time I fear for democracy.
Sure is fun though.
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 5:38 a.m. Inappropriate
I just got sick and tired of entering "12345,""1965,"and "F" (which in my mind stands for something that I feel toward Oregonian management), and just concluded that they don't want me to read their online edition. Buh-bye, stupidheads.
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 5:45 a.m. Inappropriate
My personal feeling is that coughing up a little information about yourself is reasonable compensation for access to the news at no cost. Besides, as you point out, you can always effin lie.
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 6:46 a.m. Inappropriate
The Oregonian......I just gave up, they really don't get it.
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 7:55 a.m. Inappropriate
For example, even stories of modest length are spread across multiple pages. There are three paragraphs, then an ad, then seven paragraphs, then the jump to the next page. This might be great for boosting the number of pages viewed, but it's really annoying for readers.
And don't get me started on their site navigation.
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 8:25 a.m. Inappropriate
Sorry, their copy isn't even that valuable to me.
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 9:35 a.m. Inappropriate
Charlton Price
Kansas City, MO
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 9:53 a.m. Inappropriate
crosscut means what exactly?: uh, do you only employ men for crosscut?
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 10:31 a.m. Inappropriate
I'm a Crosscutteer with the proper chromosomes.
And I know Greg Palmer is in touch with his feminine side.
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 10:40 a.m. Inappropriate
The Piper
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 10:51 a.m. Inappropriate
Caught your post from the Romanesko link and thought I'd respond to a couple of the questions related to the SR.
First, congratulations for a fine publication. Very interesting, very informative. Now that I know you're out there, I'll be checking in regularly.
The SR adopted the subscription model about four years ago. The subscription applies ONLY to the web version of the daily newspaper. We adopted that model to stop the circulation bleed as people dropped subscriptions to the print paper in order to get their local news online. The strategy accomplished that purpose and now we have a strong online-only subscriber base.
Keep in mind, no paper has figured out how to monetize the web. Web revenue is a tiny, tiny fraction of the newspaper's overall revenue which comes from the print core and which supports everything else.
I have always been somewhat puzzled by the criticism of this strategy. You wouldn't expect the newspaper to drop a free paper on your driveway seven days a week. Why should the very same product be free online?
On the other hand, the daily paper, which is stale almost the moment it comes off the press, constitutes only about 20 percent of our website's content. All breaking news sits outside the fireall. We also post stories aimed for print on the web as soon as they're done and they are free. Our blogs (which also break news), multi-media, photo slide shows, etc. are all free. Our entertainment section, calendars and so on are all free on that section's separate website.
We are rightly viewed as web innovators. Our traffic, which far exceeds other papers of our size, indicates our users have figured out how to separate the limited pay content from the much larger accumulation of free content.
We review the subscription model regularly and are doing so again as I write this. It may not be permanent, but for now it meets the needs of both the paper and our local readers.
Thanks,
Steve Smith
Editor
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 11:01 a.m. Inappropriate
RE: From The Spokesman-Review: Steve, thanks for taking the time to respond.
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 11:01 a.m. Inappropriate
RE: female here: Let's not get into that. There may be children reading.
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 11:24 a.m. Inappropriate
Eliminating overhead such as newsprint (sorry, Inland Empire Paper Co. folks), ink, presses, production employee wages and benefits, delivery costs, etc., must make some difference.
From what I've seen and read, parking content behind a pay-only firewall hasn't worked for many. I understand the NY Times tried it only to abandon it recently.
Maybe publishers haven't found out a way to make a $ off the electronic medium, but surely zillions of others have in other businesses. One thing that seems to this curious observer of your profession is just how hide-bound and insistent upon it's own prerogatives it is. The Seattle Times recent series of editorials railing against the nature of modern media ownership, etc., is an example. Peel away the rhetoric and what's left is an appeal - more a demand - for government protection of newspapers against the competitive forces of the marketplace. Should we call that Buggy Whip Journalism?
Those of us sitting home in our PJ's paid a not inconsiderable sum for the PC, Mac or laptop upon which we view stuff, plus we pay monthly to Comcast, some snail-rate DSL provider, or, for those with wooden computers containing vacuum tubes, dial-up ISP's. Inherent, then, is the thinking that it's anathema to pay a third time to anyone. I mean it's not as though you're Amazon.com and you'll send me a book, Makita chopsaw, or some Brio's for my grandson's second birthday (which is Saturday, BTW, and Brio's are what Mom says he wants).
You may have a dedicated on-line subscriber base now, but for how long? And wouldn't it profit the newspaper business to actually ponder whether there's life after paper and ink? Where I live it's King County Journal, R.I.P.
Whether it's increased reliance upon advertising, linking your business to another, or some heretofore as yet unconceived marketing concept (the Internet is full of them with more arriving daily), isn't it imperative to think a few unthinkables?
Honestly...I don't have answers, only questions...
The Piper
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 11:26 a.m. Inappropriate
His challenge has shaken me...How shall I respond?
The Piper
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 11:36 a.m. Inappropriate
it's a steal: Plus, for a generous $100 donation to Crosscut, he'll write your name into a poem.
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 11:40 a.m. Inappropriate
Trust me, we ask the same questions and we don't have good answers either.
Here's what we do know. Print remains strong, strong enough to produce tens of millions of dollars per year in revenue. It's not as easy to make money as it used to be and online competition is part of the problem (see Craigslist). But newspapers remain profitable.
While other businesses have figured out ways to make significant money online, the news media has not. That's not to say there is no revenue there. There is. But as a percentage of the total, it is small.
My newsroom costs about $10 million per year to run, something like two to three times our annual online revenue. Add in the rest of the operation, and online is a nice plus, but it won't pay the bills. An online only product, at this time, would support a news staff of a dozen or so, not the 137 at my disposal today. Our franchise is local news. You cannot get what we offer anywhere else. But imagine a local news report prodcued by 10 insteadof 137.
We know, I certainly know, that the model is changing and the calculus will change over time. There may come a time when print revenue doesn't carry the weight of the operation. But we're probably years, maybe even a decade or two from that.
So our view is charge for the daily paper, whether you get it in print, online, fax or any other means. But make everything else we do free. Utilize the freedom of the web, the interactivity of the web to add new and value-added dimensions to what we do. After all, as a medium, the web is so much richer and can be put to much better use than serving as a dump for already published, and quickly stale, print content.
I'm sure open to other ideas and suggestions, though. Find other ways to pay for a $10 million newsroom and I'll be right there with you.
Steve Smith
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 1:45 p.m. Inappropriate
A kord koated kid named Greg,
Teased for wardrobe malfunktions did beg,
"Don't taunt me with snickers,
'Bout my koat or my knickers,
Lest korporally I'll pelt you with egg!
That work for you?
The Piper
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 1:53 p.m. Inappropriate
I'm a total news junkie, whether at home or at work, where tracking stories relevant to my company is part of my job. I read many papers every day, starting with the "bible" (Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce), and continuing to the Times, PI, NYT, WSJ, TNT, TBE, etc.
Yet I (and we) refuse to pay for anything online other than the DJC. And ads make me furious every single day -- anything that pops up, any window I have to look at before seeing the desired page, anything that flashes, whatever...if it's in my way I shout a mental F-you at it, literally. My anger, however misguided, carries right through to the advertiser if, dog help them, I notice who they are.
Same for print news. I dropped the Times at home because of the ads. They wasted paper, and plus I had to carry them to the recycling room.
I prefer the Times method of updates vs. the PI. I read updates through the day at both. But in the evening I cut the PI off. If you read it too late in the evening they have most of the next day's paper online, and that means the next day will be a jumble of stuff I've already seen and stuff I haven't. I understand the idea behind the constant updates, but I'd rather read most of the paper at once, then check a few times for updates.
The PSBJ is infuriating. My office buys two print subscriptions. Until recently there was no online content until the following Monday, which I complained about and got an insulting explanation having to do with giving me better value as a customer by keeping me from reading anything. Now we're allowed to use our print subscriptions to get online content, but there's a glitch and the couple times I tried to connect I couldn't. Also, they make you click through several pages for articles that aren't very long. Every article should be on one page only. The PSBJ is so focused on protecting their content that they make their paper a big pain in the ass for readers.
The Oregonian sign-in thing is also annoying. I have a visceral opposition to filling in stuff like that, even if it's for an ok reason. Also, the "oregon live" thing is worthless to me -- I just want the paper.
The DJC is fantastic, due in part to the subscription model of course. Not many ads, complete archives back to 1990, and, for me, by far the most interesting content of any publication on earth. My only suggestion is to expand the servers a bit, because an archive search "since 1990" takes too long.
Every news site should have one page with a link to every article. The PI does fine, though I'd like an explanatory line with each headline (and please delete the daily religious nutball headline!). The Times should have something that's a cross between the front page and the "news index" -- with everything listed, but just a short synopsis of each.
CNN makes the grave mistake of leaving some headlines on for several days. I want more turnover.
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 2:53 p.m. Inappropriate
The NW is actually quite blessed with quality online newspaper sites. I invite Mr. Taylor to take another look at our site, specifically, since there were a few errors in his assessment. We post all our news at 1:30 a.m., break news all day long, have had invited comments on our stories for years and produced award-winning blogs. I offer more details in this roundup.
Regards,
Mark Briggs
Assistant Managing Editor
The News Tribune
Tacoma, Wash.
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 3:09 p.m. Inappropriate
On that last point, David Postman at the times needs should take note. If I see one more pop-up ad from casalemedia.com or whatever the hell it is, my wingnut (I'm called that elsewhere) brain will explode!
Occasionally, an ad will catch my eye if it's cleverly done and offers visual appeal. But woe unto those who seek to inhibit my freedom by making me chase and kill their g.d. pop ups or sneaky cookies or whatever...I will DIE before I buy from you birds!
The Piper
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 3:52 p.m. Inappropriate
I'm always suspicious of those who unabashedly tout awards they've received. Just because someone is the best of the worst doesn't mean a whole lot. Context is key and king...
Bottom, bottom, bottom line...as much as I love my daily paper...print journalism is choking on its own topheavidness and it's barely able to keep up with the purely electronic media. T'were it otherwise, would circulation numbers across the board be going other than the way they are???
The Piper
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 4:03 p.m. Inappropriate
RE: Take another look: Mark, every day your home page changes from the time I boot up at 5 a.m. and when I refresh an hour or so later. Usually the photo package changes from yesterday's to today's in that period of time, unless you posted that package the day before due to big news. I'm a cache-clearing maniac, so that's not my browser deceiving me.
Posted Thu, Sep 13, 4:15 p.m. Inappropriate
You're absolutely right, although our shortcomings in online photo display aren't due to lack of interest on the part of staff members in photo or online. We're in the middle of a monumental overhaul of our site, including a complete change in servers and technology, and a long-overdue redesign. Photo treatment is at the top of my list of things that need to be addressed, and Spokesman 2.0 will do a great job of showing off the fantastic photography produced here.
Ryan Pitts
Online director