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Online Update: New Looks for the Old Guard
As readers — particularly younger readers — increasingly turn to the Web for information, the nation’s news outlets are struggling to devise strategies to attract them. Bryan Keefer looks at how The New York Times and The Washington Post are trying to develop an online audience.
Will They Pay?
The Times site averages about 12 million individual visitors a month, according to the Nielsen online ratings service, while the Post site averages about 8 million. Perhaps the biggest difference between the two is that the Times has erected a pay wall around op-ed columnists via its TimesSelect program, which, as of June, had about 190,000 online-only subscribers (and 325,000 who get it as part of their print subscriptions), while the Post gives it all away. But when even the Times’s vaunted columnists can generate fewer than 200,000 subscribers, it’s still unclear what content online readers will pay for.
Blogs
The Post launched its first blog in July 2005; it now has about forty that are regularly updated. The Times launched its first blog late last year and it now has fifteen, including seven behind the TimesSelect pay wall. The Post has gone further in embracing the format by allowing reader comments and prominently advertising the blogs on its home page, while the Times seems to be keeping its blogs at arm’s length.
The Look
In April, the Times retooled its site and became one of the first newspapers to use a widescreen design. While both sites retain the photo/main-story layout of their print versions, the Times’s site now features three columns of stories (versus the Post’s two). The Times has more ways to browse, too, while the Post’s design feels more like a print newspaper, guiding readers with a slightly heavier editorial hand.
Who’s in Charge?
The sites also differ behind the scenes. Jim Roberts, the new digital news editor at NYTimes.com, reports to the Times newsroom and Executive Editor Bill Keller; when the paper moves into its new headquarters in spring 2007, the print and digital newsrooms will merge. WashingtonPost.com, meanwhile, is a separate operation from the print product, and its editor, Jim Brady, reports to the head of WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive — not Leonard Downie. The result, to date, is that the Post has been a bit more nimble about adding features and online-only content to its site.
Customization
In July, the Times launched a limited preview of MyTimes, a service that will allow users to personalize their Times home page, pull in RSS feeds from other Web sites, and see pages that Times staff members have created for themselves. The Post has had a MyWashingtonPost feature for several years, but doesn’t display it prominently; instead, the Post has two different home pages, one for D.C. locals and the other aimed at a national audience. Given the success of services like Yahoo! News that allow users to aggregate feeds from multiple news outlets, MyTimes looks as if it could be the next big thing in online.
Talking Back
Both operations plan to increase interaction with readers. WashingtonPost.com conducts eighty to ninety hours of online chat with reporters and newsmakers every week, and top editors from the Times periodically field questions from readers and answer them on the Web site. The Post recently began allowing readers to post comments below many articles, and the Times is planning to follow suit, though Vivian Schiller, general manager of NYTimes.com, says it will be “in a very New York Times way — it’s not going to be a free-for-all or unedited.” For both, the strategy seems to be, as the Post’s Brady put it, “not just to own the news, but also to own the conversation around the news” — a wise plan in the era of instant online commentary.
A Public Service Drug Test?
In June, John Fabrizi, the mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut, admitted to using cocaine while in office. He made his confession to the editorial board of the Connecticut Post after the newspaper published a story about allegations that he had used drugs. Fabrizi said he was willing to be tested “anytime, anyplace, anywhere,” and so the Post arranged a test (it was negative). CJR’s Bree Nordenson spoke to editor James Smith of the Post about his newspaper’s unusual watchdog tactic.
How and why did you decide to challenge the mayor to a drug test?
It was our publisher’s [Robert H. Laska] idea. He brought it up in an editorial meeting. We discussed it, and there wasn’t total agreement on it. Some people were worried that we were making the news, not reporting it.
Do you see this as extension of your newspaper’s duty to inform its readers?
Absolutely. If you’re talking about a mayor who says he used cocaine, how do you find out if he’s off cocaine? Well, you test him.
Have you ever done anything like this before, or heard of a news outlet that has?
I’ve been thinking about that. When journalists go undercover, there is some ethical decision-making. You don’t do it unless there’s no other way to get the information. I guess it’s in that vein that I found this an ethical mode to discover the truth.
You say this was a public service, but it could also be seen as a tabloid-style stunt. Was there an element of sensationalism in your decision?
Some of our readers have called it a stunt. I think those in the community who are supporting the mayor and want him to succeed wouldn’t mind saying the newspaper pulled a stunt. We didn’t think it was a stunt at all. It was taking the mayor up on his challenge.
Who paid for the test?
We did. Because it was our challenge, we felt that we should foot the bill. As we continue to chronicle his recovery, if he’s taking drug tests on his own, we’ll want to know how they went, but that’s at his expense.
Have you asked the mayor to submit to a hair test as you had said you planned to do in an editorial?
Yes. We’re going to do it this week. [It was negative.]
Do you plan to accompany the mayor on any more drug tests after that?
Don’t know that yet.
Language Corner
Bad Vibrations
Unlike the distinctly unlovely use of “reference” as a verb (CJR, July/August 2006), the figurative use of “resonate” is effective and apt. But it became painfully popular as the century rolled over; a nice metaphor has been cheapened.
“Resonate” means to sound strongly and deeply, or to echo, pleasingly or otherwise. And our word makes for a fine, versatile metaphor, meaning ring a bell, strike a chord, make a strong impression, have a lasting impact, be memorable, and so on.
And on:
“But it takes a Byrne, Rushdie or Fellini or Dali to make the details resonate.”
“What is important is that the Teen-age Mutants resonate so strongly with the kids.”
“The songs resonate to her own experience.”
“When people see the big company letterhead, it resonates well.”
But enough — and that’s the point. “Resonate” is trite. We should let it rest awhile.
— Evan Jenkins
A lot more about writing is in Language Corner at CJR’s Web site, www.cjr.org, under “Journalism Tools.”
Hard Numbers
200, 24: Numbers of Lebanese and Israeli dead on 7/17/06, as reported on ABC.
250: Number of dead “on both sides” as reported the same day by FOX and Christian Broadcasting Network.
33.6: Percent of U.S. population that is from minority groups.
22.2: Percent of TV news work force that is from minority groups.
6.4: Percent of radio news work force that is from minority groups.
86.8: Percent of TV news directors who are Caucasian.
95.6: Percent of radio news directors who are Caucasian.
5.8: Percent of CJR’s staff that is from a minority group.
23: Percent of CJR’s staff that is female.
8: Number of journalists killed for their work in Pakistan since 2002.
7: Number of those journalists who were Pakistani.
1: Number of cases investigated (American Daniel Pearl).
23: Number of years between publication of an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer and settlement of the libel case it provoked.
14: Number of years since plaintiff died.
2: Number of years since original attorney for plaintiff died.
Sources: The New York Times, The Guardian, RTNDA/Ball State University annual survey, CPJ, FOX, ABC, Philadelphia Inquirer, CJR research
To read the articles in the September/October 2006 issue, click here.
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