Looking from the outside in
Posted on April 27, 2008 by Melissa Worden
I’ve been away from the newsroom for only two months, and I feel my news consumption has changed considerably.
For some background: I was an online news producer for eight years. During that time, I covered entertainment, travel and breaking news. I helped out with the sports and money sections as needed. I focused on online community development and then, specifically, multimedia. I’ve worked for large and small papers.
And I loved what I did because I loved being a part of a community. Serving their need to know what’s going on around the world and in their towns and their need to be educated about how what’s happening affects their lives.
I was a news junkie. I consumed news reports as much as I produced them.
- Of course, I read the site I worked for daily, and I subscribed to the print edition.
- I knew all of the breaking news updates that happened — every single day.
- I supplemented my local news updates by reading the national newspaper and cable TV news Web sites.
- I used an RSS reader to keep up with blogs and news sites.
- I used del.icio.us all the time to keep up with blogs and news sites.
- I “played” with content and sought out video, interactive graphics and special reports by newspapers — not just in my local area, but around the world.
- I watched cable and network TV in the morning, evening and weekends.
- I looked at the Drudge Report and Google & Yahoo news a couple of times a day for another overview.
I wasn’t reading and watching everything, but I felt plugged in.
Now? Well, my schedule’s not nearly the same.
- I don’t subscribe to my local print papers (there are four in my area, including two in my town). Sometimes, one of the town papers ends up on my driveway for some mysterious reason, but I rarely read it. And when I do, I’m disappointed by the lack of LOCAL coverage.
- During the day at work, I don’t have time to read these four newspapers’ Web sites. My schedule has changed with my job: I’m in a lot of meetings, and when I’m not, well, I have work to do — work that isn’t monitoring Web sites. I might check them during lunch, if I’m eating at my desk. But I won’t be going back to the sites for the rest of the day, so I’ve missed out on all those breaking news updates.
- I remember how important it was to beat the competition by even seconds when posting to the Web. But guess what? As a news consumer now, I don’t care. In all honesty, unless there’s a 9/11-type event, I’m probably not even checking the site. I don’t even know it’s posting all that great content.
- I only have time to “play” with multimedia and other content that’s most important to me — I’ll engage in interactive graphics, watch videos and read blogs that interest me most. The others, either I don’t have time to read or I don’t know the content even exists.
- I still check Drudge, Google and Yahoo when I have the time.
- I depend on RSS feeds even more.
- I still watch a lot of cable news TV at night and on the weekends.
Here’s what’s completely new:
- I’ve become one of “them.” I don’t get my news from newspapers and I get little of my news by traditionally viewing a newspaper Web site — as one would a newspaper. I don’t go to the homepage (A1) as often. I don’t flip through the different section fronts and scan the headlines as often. And I certainly won’t read any type of e-paper.
- But I DO subscribe to print magazines. Why the difference? I get niche content in magazines. My perception is I don’t get that in my newspapers.
- I subscribe to news Twitter accounts. CNN posts breaking news tweets, and I love that it doesn’t overload me with updates. When I get a tweet from them, I pay attention. I enjoy USATODAY.com’s “On Deadline” tweets. They give me a great overview of what’s going on nationally during the day. More newspaper Twitter accounts are out there, but none for my local or city area.
- I get news stories from friends on Twitter. It’s like standing around a virtual water cooler. Sometimes tweets are chit-chat. Sometimes they’re gossip. And sometimes they’re news links.
- I depend more on links shared by friends via Facebook.
- I depend on my del.icio.us network even more to keep up with blogs and news sites.
- I’ve gone back to reading e-mail newsletters. These have been so valuable to me, and I’ve noticed blogs offering an e-mail option (I don’t know if this is new, or if I’m noticing it because it’s more important to me now).
- I seek out shows that analyze the news and entertain me. I watch “The Daily Show,” “Reliable Sources” on CNN, and I browse YouTube videos.
- I’m less often distinguishing my news by TV, print or blogs. News is news. Information is information. The only distinguisher is whether I trust the provider.
I’m still not reading and watching everything. In fact, I feel like I’m seeking out much less. But I still felt plugged in.
Lessons to be learned for news organizations:
>> Make it local. Of all the news I get, the information I usually want most is what I’m not getting: local content. And what I really, really want is micro-local content.
>> Rethink what interactive means. Newspaper’s are doing a great job of creating innovative interactive content, but much of it requires a user/reader to seek out the Web site to participate.
Why not tie social networking tools into your next project? Make it viral. Let readers “play” with that awesome database you made — from their mobile. Here’s an opportunity to take greater advantage of the Web to break up linear storytelling.
>> Personalization is so important. The beauty of blogs and social networking sites is the ability to drill-down to niche content. THAT is what I want as a news consumer now. I still want the main overviews, but I don’t have time to get specifics about everything. I want the specifics about what matters to me most.
Too often newspaper Web sites are too difficult to navigate. I find it hard to find the specifics I need. When I worked for a news site, I used it and several others every day. I knew where most everything was on those sites and could click to the content I needed quickly. But since I’m not visiting them daily now, I tend to get lost right away.
>> Push your content & take advantage of social networking (aka, learn how to market your site and its content). All the fabulous, innovative work that newspapers are doing may be lost to readers who have to seek it out themselves. There are a lot of other Internet and real-life interests, commitments, and demands that are competing for your readers’ time.
As a former journalist, I may be able to find links to innovative special reports via NPPA, ONA, NAA, etc. But “average” readers probably don’t know about these awards or these sites, nor would they be likely to seek them out.
We all know how hard it is to find multimedia/special packages on a site when we’re IN the industry (I depend on multimedia blogs such as Teaching Online Journalism, News Videographer & the former Multimedia Shooter). Now I know how hard it is on the outside. If a reader misses seeing a special package the day it was highlighted on the news Web site, they may never see it.
Particularly if readers are focusing on their niche areas, they’ll miss a great effort that could possibly be of great importance to them. I need an easy way to stay in the know.
This is already happening to me. For example, road work may be done to a highway near where I live, which would have a significant impact on my community. But I keep missing the stories about it written by my local papers. Sure, I could set up a Google search alert and hope it finds the stories I need to read. But now you’re requiring the reader to do a lot of work to access your content. It should be easy for them. Plus, what if I didn’t know the road work was going to happen in the first place? I’d most certainly miss it.
Social networking is more than creating a community on your own site (which is definitely an important step). It’s creating a community around your news that’s off your site, too:
- Does your site use mobile and e-mail updates? If so, do they work effectively and correctly?
- Does your site use Twitter? It’s such an easy way to keep your readers in the know about breaking news, weather and traffic.
- Does your site use Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Flickr?
- Does your site interact with bloggers — not just as sources, but to engage in a conversation on their sites? Does your site leverage news aggregates such as Fark, Drudge Report, etc.?
* NOTE: Patrick Thornton has a great post on how news is a social event for his generation that ties in well with my post-newsroom experiences.
Tags: newspapers, non-linear storytelling, online journalism
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10 Responses to “Looking from the outside in”
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Great comments! I teach journalism and have learned a lot by reading your post. Keep up the comments. I will definitely use this post in my classroom.
I would appreciate your personal email address so I can stay in communication with you. I intend to set up discussions with people via web cam during my classes as a way to have a virtual guest speaker. Would you be interested?
Let me know.
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In response to…
>> Make it local. Of all the news I get, the information I usually want most is what I’m not getting: local content. And what I really, really want is micro-local content.
This is a good idea as long as you get the opportunity to decide what content you want and exclude what you don’t want. Granted, I live in a city with better news coverage than other cities, but I could care less that some school board is meeting to decide whether to allow kids to wear flip-flops to school or whether they are banning PDA’s (and I’m not taking about Blackberries).
And even in some cases, it doesn’t matter to me that there was a 12-car accident that tied up traffic for hours YESTERDAY. I care about that -when I’m stuck in traffic- not after the fact.
Maybe I get the bigger picture of the news by listening to NPR and Marketplace on PRI both of which I find more relevant to my daily news needs. I feel like things that happen out there in the world are far more important than some of the trivial details of what’s happening in my city.
And don’t even get me started on the miserable “coming up in 15 minutes on the Morning Show!” drivel that I see -every- morning on my local news channel while I eat breakfast. I could care less what’s going to be on TV in 15 minutes. I’m going to work like the rest of this city! :)
Local weather and traffic, -major- local news events, national news, world news. Not necessarily in that order, but that’s my news needs.
Hey Melissa, great post. Very interesting perspective.
BTW, you can set up an automated daily blog e-mail delivery easily via Feedburner. That’s how I do it on Journalistopia.
[…] conversation. If you’d like to get a perspective on what that means then you should check out this post on “From the X Degree.” via Teaching Online […]
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Thanks for the feedback, all.
@Danny, I’ll look into the e-mail option. Do you use it for blogs, too? Or do you prefer RSS?
@Joel: Yay! Joel’s reading my blog! Thanks for the great comment. (All, take note: Joel is not a journalist, either, so this is a comment from a potential reader of yours.)
Re: “And even in some cases, it doesn’t matter to me that there was a 12-car accident that tied up traffic for hours YESTERDAY. I care about that -when I’m stuck in traffic- not after the fact.”
Well said.
And your news needs are similar to mine: “Local weather and traffic, -major- local news events, national news, world news.” I’d even go so far as to put it in that order, on an average day.
It’s very interesting, I think, that weather and traffic now top my needs. Inside journalism, I thought of that as “extra stuff.” You know, the things we add to the homefront because we “have to.” On the outside, I find these services much more essential. Journalists shouldn’t underestimate their value.