OJR front page archive for September 2008

News websites need sharper focus, consistent design to attract audience, advertisers

"You say that the 'old business model for news is broken.' What does that mean? What part of it is broken? What part of it can we expect journalists to put in its place?"

Let me take on that one today.

If we back up enough, I think we'll find that core principles that power the news business remain viable in the Internet era. Advertisers continue to deliver billions of dollars to publishers. Heck, my wife and I make the bulk of our income from direct and networked ad sales on our websites, for a personal example.

Other concepts can work, as well. Christopher Kimball and his crew at Cook's Illustrated have shown that paid online content and offline subscriptions can support a robust ad-free publishing company. Non-profits such as the Consumers Union remain viable online, and other non-profits, such as ProPublica, show promise.

So people can, and are making a variety of concepts work, whether they be based on advertising, subscriptions and/or contributions and grant funding. So what has the Internet broken? More...

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Continuous Updates: Design decisions when designating breaking news

Why we did the study

One of the great strengths of the web is the ability to keep news updated and to alert readers immediately to stories they need to know about. This is also one of the biggest organizational changes the web has brought to newsrooms. Shifting from daily to constant deadlines has caused a rethinking of work flow, editing, and reporting responsibilities.

But questions remain about the best way to ensure that these updated or breaking news items are presented on the page for greatest visibility. Judging from the wide variety of design techniques newsrooms use to designate breaking news, there is no consensus on the best approach.

In May 2007 the top 102 US newspapers' websites were analyzed to catalog the different ways "breaking" news was being displayed. We looked at labels used to indicate news was updated or new and the design techniques for differentiating "breaking" news from other news items on the homepage. More...

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Build your own echo chamber

The easy answer is for journalists to provide sharper, more engaging work that's, well, even louder than what we've offered our readers back when most newspapers had monopolies in their local markets. Fortunately, as the Internet slams us with new competition, it offers journalists new opportunities as well. Specifically, today I'd like to write about the opportunity the Internet provides us to build relationships with our readers that will help amplify our reporting and its influence in society.

Echo chambers have gotten a bad rap from some in journalism. But partisan media echo chambers can teach responsible journalists important lessons about how to motivate readers and to use the power of repetition to rebuild a newsroom's influence in its community. More...

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Welcome back, to the 'new' OJR

I am the new director of the Annenberg School of Journalism at the University of Southern California. My four decades in newspapering may have helped land me in this position, but it's my gusto for the future of information in the public interest that defines my work now. We hope — here at Annenberg, and here at OJR in its new Knight Digital Media Center home — to help figure out what it is about journalism that is most important to carry forward. And, we hope to do what we can to ensure that it does indeed GET carried forward. More...

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