boundforboston
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- Joined
- Jul 16, 2011
- Messages
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Put another way: Why must newspaper websites suck so damn much?
Excellent post. Very very excellent.Part of the problem is chains like Gannett and Gatehouse force the local sites to use the exact same framework and build as every other outlet in the chain. So you get an ugly, homogenized look. If you browse a couple of those sites at the same time, it's easy to forget which one you're on.
It also leaves little room for local creativity.
The other problem local sites have is they give away their ad space to Google instead of utilizing it themselves. Instead of getting paid per click or view through Google's algorithm, why not sell front page space to a local entity? My old shop used to do that when they were independent. They got bought by a chain a couple years ago and now that revenue is gone.
With my copy-editing background, I'm biased, of course. But I believe many sites would be less "horrible" if stories received some real editing attention instead of being rushed onto the web directly from the field or receiving one hasty read. The most frequent reader complaints about my former shop's digital sites (stories were posted on the web before going to the print-centric copy desk) wasn't that they weren't timely or comprehensive but that they were riddled with spelling, grammatical and fact errors. But fixing the situation would require more time for editing and more money for copy editors. That's not going to happen.
If only we could get posters to do that here!At my place we will hit pub rather quickly, but some of us also give it a second read immediately thereafter and clean it up really early.