The Athletic keeps growing .......

Wicked is right its easy to post a one line story... how many hits is a one line story going to get when its contents are entitely contained in the tweet/headline?

Its a closed circle with ‘right but no one’s clicking the detailed link later when they know the news either’

 

A very generic headline at first ("Dumbass agrees to deal with Podunk"), and then you can tweak it to tease out other details. You can also put that "this story is developing and will be updated" disclaimer in the body copy.

When you update the hed down the road you run the URL through the Twitter/Facebook debuggers so the new headline will show on the cards.

I'm far from an expert on this stuff, but it doesn't seem like rocket science.

If you want people to spend time on your website, tossing the news out there for free on Twitter is stupid.

 

i agree its not rocket science but its kind of a waste of time. As a reader, I know I have X clicks a month, I’m not wasting them on a one line story that says “Jim Jones signs extension” when the headline/Tweet also says “Jim Jones signs extension.”

you can put “Podunk star signs” as a hed, I suppose, and then you don’t use a photo so that doesnt spoil it. But how many clicks are we really talking about is it worth it?

 

In theory, yes. But blame Google News and Twitter for sending everyone the way of the first thing posted. The idea is to serve your regulars and the drop-bys.

Note: I'm pro-subscription all the way. You will never make enough money from online advertising to cover the cost of journalism. But if you can get some added traffic by not stalling on a breaking news post, why the hell not.

 

There isn't one.

There's an ego justification to it. Journalists all hang out there and want to win the group pissing contest.

 

Y0u obviously are talented. Most desks want the news in written form to prevent the errors I suggested. Many people taking a one line dictated item to be posted would screw it up. You don't want to mess up an item like that and unless it is written out in story format for the editor to post there is no paper trail for the inevitable mistake
Reporter: Can you put up one sentence? "Tom Brady agrees to contract extension with Bucs."
Slot: Sure. ... How it appears online ... "Greg Brady agrees to contract extension with Bucs." Or "Greg Brady agrees to contract extension with Pats." So suddenly someone has to be fired. That's why there are procedures to get it written up in the system by the reporter and then to an editor to post. Do it otherwise and the mistake WILL be made soon enough.

 

Same here.

If it's breaking, the reporter posts, digital works its SEO magic, and the editor backreads.

In that order.

If the SEO is right, the file will continue to resonate as it gets updated. It'll have a lower average retention, since it'll start with a one-line file.

Do Google, Facebook, other algorithms ding the file for being short?

 

Slot editors can’t be trusted.

The suits laid off all the slot editors.

Pick one Fredrick you clown.

 

How can a legitimate news organization let the reporter post the story without a look? In this day and age with so much "pressure" to get up a story as fast as possible, the reporter's work MUST be read. Or you are going to have so many embarrassing mistakes.

 

A. Apologies for the thread jack.

B. In hindsight, it might take five minutes — and that’s because most newsrooms have suboptimal content management systems. You know which ones they are. One Italian company made a killing selling their POS to a couple big-time newsrooms. Even Arc, which I generally like, isn’t great if you’re working with the stripped-down, non-Post version.

 

And some content management systems don't allow you to update the URL or are a bitch to manage the SEO. So you're creating new assets regularly.