Eye Care Dave

For newspapers to get it right on the web, I think they need to rethink what they do on the web. They need to build websites that offer content web readers want, produced and presented in a way that is functional and engaging on the web. What newspapers actually do is repurpose print content in the most cost-effective way possible. It’s a business model that misses the point: What content and what delivery/presentation method provide value in the eyes of the url-clicking public?

I should confess that I am a lapsed newspaper editor. I left the business eight years ago. When I left, business was booming for readership consultants, design consultants, marketing consultants — any consultant who could suggest ways to stem readership erosion. The relationship between the newspapers and the consultants looked a lot like Jenny Craig and overweight America, with predictable results. I doubt the landscape has changed much, but I would bet there is now a new class of consultant trying to sell newspapers on the idea of blogs!

For newspapers to get it right on the web, newspapers need to study web readers to see what they read and what they buy, and then newspapers need to put creative, thoughtful people to work building the websites readers will use with frequency. My guess is that won’t happen, that newspapers will continue to shrink, and new, smart (and lucky) media businesses will win market share in both the news and advertising spaces.

—
Thomas Osborne

My gripe, once again, is more with the headline links on newspaper sites that
give no context. Count the links on the NYT site – and don’t even bother with
the left-hand column…

You say:

"I actually want to get rid of the right rail, as well as expand to full width, and
use the space to present stories in parallel down the page. I think the vertical
stack, for a site with multiple audiences, is very rigid. For instance, we have
local stories of great local interest above international stories of great local
(and worldwide) interest. We should have a local column and an international
column of stories–at least."

Yes, that would make much more sense. All that wasted space on the right
detracts from the overall view. And a two-column approach would be a lot
better. (But don’t go to the extreme like the Atlantic Monthly does…)

I actually want to get rid of the right rail, as well as expand to full width, and
use the space to present stories in parallel down the page. I think the vertical
stack, for a site with multiple audiences, is very rigid. For instance, we have
local stories of great local interest above international stories of great local
(and worldwide) interest. We should have a local column and an international
column of stories–at least.

—
Michael Odza
Web Publisher
FreeNewMexican.com
modza@sfnewmexican.com

I took a look at your site – why do you, like most newspapers, not take
advantage of the width of browser windows? You have your site set up so
anyone at 800×600 sees the same as anyone with a wide screen. I see your
main page with about 1/3 empty space on the right side…

This said, you’ll notice that I didn’t gripe too much about the NYT’s list of
links on the left; they are static links, just like my left column, and yours too.
I don’t find that to be a problem. As I said above about my site, these links
are permanent, so they don’t require you to find them anew each time you
come to the site.

Now, getting to the important stuff – the news stories – you’ve got it right.
While I’d vote down your right-hand column – that fade-to-white is the
highlight of unusability – the stories in the central column are just as they
should be: headline, deck, some photos, and white space, a rarity on
newspaper sites.

There is hope: Eyetracking studies (go to
Poynter.org and search for Eyetrack) have shown where and what people
focus on, on a site, both news and other types, and knoxville.com is one
that has tried to apply those lessons.

Beyond that, however, on our old-fashioned stack ‘em up site, people DO
scroll down, and do click on links (and ads, thank goodness)–we can bury a
big story at the bottom of the stack and our readers (250,000 uniques/month
normally, 450,000+ this month because of Letterman and Richardson
touching Denish stories) find them. So people are willing to do some work.

For sites with lots of links, look at Amazon, Yahoo, and other non-news sites,
and note that Yahoo still
outranks Google in total traffic (email helps a lot, of course.)
To manage the flood of stories, we tried topics, but now we’re looking at tags
as a way to help you find all the
“scandal” stories, or all the “democracy abroad” stories. (Not yet
implemented.)

And another thing: as a small-town newspaper we’re “supposed” to
be hyperlocal–but in fact we get tremendous readership on our wide-
ranging international news–because Santafeans, like people everywhere,
have opinions about the rest of the world, and we allow them to express
them.

—
Michael Odza
Web Publisher
FreeNewMexican.com
modza@sfnewmexican.com

I think the key is making something that is visibly enticing – enough white
space, but not too much. Not too many links without contextual info (either text
or photos). And several navigational paths.

Do let me know if you come up with anything original.

Education on issues, on history, on politics; all those things should be part of
a newspaper’s mandate. Todays newspapers should be printing articles
explaining concepts, not just news, to get their readers more able to
understand the ramifications of things. (That’s how it works in my main line
of work – we coumputer authors write lots of simple articles for magazines,
so our readers can move up and understand the more complex stuff, which is
either longer articles or books.)

But there is also a question of national feeling. As long as Americans believe
that Tom Cruise’s baby or Janet Jackson’s nipple are more important than the
freezing, starving Pakistanis, or the war-torn poor in Darfur, these things will
not change. In a way, it’s the sign of ostrich-itis, but it’s also a sign of a true
belief of superiority.

As for news aggregators, I don’t want "the majority" to decide which news I read.
That’s what an editor does – make the decisions according to a logic of
completeness. All those aggregators, such as Google News, just look at either
the most popular stories (stars, their babies, etc.) or the ones readers "like". I
don’t think newsworthiness should be determined that way.

I think the question is not how can an online news outlet provide a product and experience similar to a printed newspaper, but rather what should we expect from an online news site? I find a more focused product works better, there are several good sports sites, weather sites, classified ad sites, etc. But a portal that tries to do it all can’t compete with any of the sites that specialize; and the Internet makes it very easy to jump from site to site so you don’t need a single site the way you need everything in a newspaper. Nobody wants to read dozens of newspapers, but visiting dozens of web sites is common.

Then there’s the question of how to skim lots of headlines for a story that interests you. Maybe there is no good Internet replacement for skimming a newspaper while eating breakfast; just as there’s no way to skim radio or television news. Perhaps the closest Internet equivalent is an aggregate like Digg, fark, or slashdot; people with interests similar to the reader’s pointing out articles that interested them. I was never convinced that a newspaper editor’s judgment on what I should be reading was in my best interest anyway.

Regards,
-Tom

I really enjoyed reading your article, though I found it rather unfulfilling as it is sans a real solution. From my perspective the real issue is rather McLuhanish in that modern newspaper sites have clearly mixed up the medium with the message. They just don’t get it. I’m an avid reader as well and I’ve had to suffer through the many design attempts of various newspapers to become truly electronic repositories.

Some newspapers have attempted a visual replication of the visceral experience of reading one’s favourite broadsheet – only to remove it when readership declined due to nobody wanting to-wait-for-the-dumb-graphical-page-to-finally-turn! To Clintonize McLuhan; “It is the medium, stupid!” The struggle that is happening is somewhat akin to the attempts by American newspapers in the 1930s to distribute articles via radio signals to early fax machines. These devices, while purchased by geeks and early-adopters, failed to really catch on because they only printed at 150 words an hour, and hey it was the height of the depression. They were expensive (for both transmitter and reader), slow and had no advertising basis for financial support. A business MUST make money in order to live, it is its food. Any enterprise that doesn’t ‘eat’ dies. Radio-based faxes died from starvation.

Newspapers are NOT Internet sites, and they shouldn’t attempt to be what they are not. The real challenge that they face is the ever-declining readership and print-levels of the paper editions. This is the biggest threat to newspapers, but hopefully this will be the real pain point that drives them to innovate in to the 21st Century.

At this moment, I feel that newspapers are dead. They may still be breathing, but they are in a coma – on life support and are simply hanging on due to pure inertia from a long established history. (Just so you know, I love my newspaper, I’ve been a subscriber all my adult life, I even had two physical subscriptions while I was single. Today I also have 26 magazine / periodical subscriptions as well, so it isn’t like I hate the medium, but I do see it mostly dying out in the next two decades.) The ‘cure’ isn’t in broadband or pure graphical equivalencies of the physical medium, rather it will be found in the successful development of something better and easier than what exists today. You’ve correctly identified one of the biggest problems with current website iterations; too many links. It isn’t easy navigating most news-based websites today. I really wonder how what percentage of people simply don’t bother to scroll down or look around too much beyond the headlines because it simply is too mentally taxing to do so. It takes a huge amount of thinking effort to transfer text into comprehension and contextualization. The puking up of a million links to a billion different parts of a modern newspaper’s contents on the home page is a guarantee that only a small percentage of hard-core users will slog in through the maze.

The key is to be able to organize and hide all of the complexity from the visitor. Google aced this when it first arrived – presenting a single function interface that did an excellent, singular job. Today’s Google, while still spartan compared to something like Yahoo, is far more noisy and will likely only continue down this path to muck as it grows into Microsoft 2.0. When you pick up the paper from your front porch in the morning, it isn’t complicated. It is just a pile of paper with some colours on it. It doesn’t begin to present any complexity until you decide to open it and dig around. Even when you scan the front page, usually only the various daily sections (Editorial, Business, Sports, Entertainment, Classified, Obit, etc.) are indexed, not individual stories. You need to take the effort to grab the fourth section to find out more information about the latest developments in the Enron legal process. It is expected that there will be some effort involved in finding a story or to peruse a subject in your favourite daily. This fact of newspapers runs directly against the ‘information at your finger tips’ reality of the Internet via Google. The experiences don’t exist well together, hence the frustration that you and everyone else out there who enjoys sitting down with a favourite newspaper has experienced in the online interaction with a ‘newspaper’ site.

Your lament about the temporal nature of electronic postings vs. a daily fixed printed version is one that I share as well. So, having said all this, do I have a suggestion for Newspaper owners as to what they should do in order to survive to 2020? Perhaps, though it has yet to be done and proven. Here are the design features and capabilities I believe that newspapers must incorporate in any website if they want success in surviving in an electronic information world:

1) Embrace the gestalt of the Internet. Put aside any desire to turn the Internet into an electronic newspaper and instead work to truly understand and leverage what the Internet medium is vs. what the newspaper medium is.

2) Play to your strengths. If you are a local / regional newspaper (The Calgary Herald, Toronto Star, Chicago Tribune) then ensure that your website is THE place to go for information on local news and information. If you are a ‘record’ newspaper (The Globe and Mail, NYT, WSJ, Le Monde) then ensure that you present the world to your readers and reflect back to the world your perspective of it. (ie. If I want to know the American perspective on a significant event in Australia, then I check out the story’s coverage in the NYT.)

3) Remember. This is a change from the temporal nature of newspapers, but it is critical in terms of what the ‘net is all about. If you fail to provide your readers with a full and comprehensive archive of ALL of your past content, you will be failing at step 1. The Internet is an archive.

4) Expound. The real physical limits of newsprint no longer apply. Offer your readers the experience of being able to learn more on a topic. Consider the different types of newspapers; tabloids (not much more than ads and headlines), broadsheets (larger articles, less ad % per page), paper of record (in-depth, multi-day articles, few ads, little colour). Perhaps embracing each general style option for your readers all within a single destination – with presentation and content formatted to an individual reader’s preference. Communicate with each audience (a single reader) in a manner that the audience prefers (a complete reversal of a newspaper’s one-size-fits-all mode).

5) Entice. Human beings love to be enticed. When something is attractive, we are capable of investing almost anything, even our lives for it! Make what you present sexy. Apple knows this secret. Google began with it. Make your online content easy on the eyes (your medium’s presentation doesn’t have to be complex; a bikini is simple, and simply irresistible to look at!) What is in the bikini is complex…but by the time that I’m interactive with her, the effort to get to know her isn’t work, it is pleasure. Entice me in to your website and I’ll enjoy getting to know you better because I will be enjoying myself.

6) Educate. Far too much content on the Internet and any mass-media is crap. The 500-channel universe is 498 channels of drivel and perhaps 2 with something worthy of my time. More does not mean better if it is simply air-filled information. People read a newspaper because they want to learn. They don’t want to know about the Pythagorean Theorem, but they DO want to know about information that each printed newspaper typically covers day-to-day, year-over-year. Each paper has its own information domain, and it should leverage the power of the Internet to expand beyond what is typically offered in the printed version. Hyperlinks to external information sources are not evil, even if they take a reader away. Again, you gotta get #1 before the rest can work.

7) Inform. This is not the same as 6. I want to learn (#6), but I also want to know. The difference is in context and content. I may want to learn more about the Air Marshall program on American commercial aircraft. That is an education that I am seeking. I also want to know what play is being offered at my local theatre, and what a reviewer thought of it. The first piece of information is likely something that I will want to remember on a permanent basis. The second is temporary; it helps me determine if I think that the play is worth my effort and money to watch. In a year I won’t likely remember exactly where or when I saw the play or even what the reviewer said, but I’ll probably have a mental note in regards to my response to the play if I actually went to see it.

Informing is also the role of advertising. While you may hate ads in your online newspaper, they do play a role that is greater than the simple income-level of that site. Advertisers and readers share a common interest in traditional newspapers; it is a consistent and reliable way to communicate. I can name off the regular flyer inserts by day of placement for my local newspaper, and for me it is a service. Every Thursday a new Canadian Tire insert is always there. I rely on seeing it every week, as I know it is an excellent way for me to know what is on sale and if it is worth a trip in the next week. I’ve saved thousands of dollars by utilizing the knowledge of sales and coupons that have come to me via my newspaper on a regular rotation from the retailers that I frequent. Sure there is advertising that I don’t respond to, but this is another strength of the Internet medium, and not a weakness. If you doubt, go back to step #1 and ‘get’ it first, THEN you’ll be ready to design an excellent online newspaper website. If you rush it before you truly get it, you be repeating the sins of the past.

8) Don’t give up. You MUST continue to work at this problem because all of the current trend numbers clearly point to extinction. The existing infrastructure of modern newspapers is expensive, and it requires a large readership to support. Subscriptions don’t typically pay for the content; they simply try to cover the cost of printing and distribution. The real profit in a newspaper is in the selling of your eyeballs to advertisers; fewer eyeballs mean lower revenue, which leads to quick extinction. Up until the mid 1970s, most Canadian cities had 2 broadsheet newspapers, now most cities are served by a single broadsheet and a ‘Sun’ tabloid. Profits are thin and hence quality is declining. Most of these papers are looking rather emaciated when compared to even the 1980s; the next step is the death of the small-mid market broadsheets. Only innovation in bringing your content to today’s youth (15+) will ensure that you will have an audience in 20 years. Today’s youth are online, NOT in paper.

I realize that this isn’t a 10-step list. I’d be fluffing up my thoughts if I were to attempt to come up with two more points. (I do think that to re-jig this in to some parallel 12-step program list might work….but that is for another day.) Kirk, I look forward to reading your thoughts on this.

Ron

My managing editors get it though; they don’t know how to do it so they have hired me to do it. They know about the presentation, the ad space, the content and the need to provide an online paper that works for web readers.

I am open to ways that better present the immense amount of content that is produced everyday in the paper to online (sports drives our stats). So just as you say in your thoughts you don’t have any ideas, try digging your way out of a ton of them to make them work. With they web, there isn’t just one answer, but I’m working on some of them: RSS, date display, headline, abstract, full content display, navigation, organization, visual cues: links to related stories, mulitmedia, photo, etc. – all of this while trying to establish our brand and not loose it at the same time.

But I agree that its layout is better than the NYT and WP…

Kevin