Allison's Blog
Ta Kala DiokomenArchive for May, 2010
Design and Functionality: A Semester in the Making
Although the question of design and functionality of our respective news organization websites was raised to my Online Journalism class as early as March 4, I quickly decided that this was a question I wanted to save.
I have been examining the New York Times Online all semester now, and while researching the varying elements of this website, I also learned quite a bit about its general usability.
In short, with each factor I researched, I was slowly learning the answer to this very question.
The first time I visited the website in this capacity, I was examining its use of video. I immediately noticed the way a seemingly endless amount of content was effectively organized into a manageable hierarchy.
When I examined the blogging aspect of the publication, I noted how organized and easily accessible content was made to be.
Organization was something I recognized consistently. When examining the site’s use of photography, I was impressed by the unique way this element was used in a storytelling capacity. Whether readers are looking for poignant documentation of the day, the week, the year, or even the decade, content is organized in a way that they can always get what they want.
While examining the site’s unique web features, I learned of several new ways they have been sharing the news, such as TimesPeople and Times Skimmer. These, in addition to other applications like TimesReader and NYT Editor’s Choice, which I discovered while examining the use of distribution channels, illustrate one of this publication’s greatest assets. This lies in the variety of ways content can be consumed. Because of this, there is no one design for this publication. Rather, users are free to choose whichever one they like.
This was continually reinforced, each time I visited the publication’s website, whether I was doing research for the rest of my blogging, or simply catching up on the news.
My conclusion? There is a reason the New York Times is so successful.
“All the News that’s Fit to Print.” That’s what they promise.
And they deliver. In any way we want.
The Public Editor: Representing the Readers
If my coursework for Online Journalism has taught me anything this semester, it is that the online medium has caused massive changes to the journalism business as a whole.
Perhaps the most notable of these is the inherent blurring of the barrier separating reporters and their audience.
The Internet has provided an endless outlet, in which anyone can be a reporter, in some way, shape, or form.
Beyond this, the practice of crowdsourcing, or “collaborative publishing” shows us that audience engagement has become an essential aspect of the news industry. Even at a top publication like the New York Times, readers now have the ability to shape the news, and even the way in which is reported to them.
One way that this is being done, in the case of the NYT, comes in the form of a man named Clark Hoyt.
He serves as The Times’s public editor; the readers’ representative. His job is to address readers’ feedback, both positive and negative, regarding the NYT, its varying content, and its journalistic practices.
According to Byron Calame, a former public editor, the job involves being “an outsider dedicated to representing readers and serving as a watchdog over the paper’s journalistic integrity.”
In introducing himself to his readers, Calame explains, “Greater transparency, I believe, can help you as readers better understand the news judgements that shape each day’s paper- and hold The Times’s news staff more accountable.”
But in this day and age, transparency is not enough, and so, it is the public editor’s job to make sure the readers are heard and their feedback heeded.
In that, we can see just how the Internet has changed journalism…for the better.
The NYT: A Unique Formula of Social Media
The Facebook page of the New York Times is just another way of experiencing just how much of a hold this publication has on the media world, even now.
There are 592,785 fans, 753 photo albums, and 355 videos. The page also links to affiliate Facebook pages, like those of T Magazine, Frugal Traveler, and City Room. Wall posts vary, from simple greetings, like the most recent “saludos y buen día para todos,” from Quique Quiroz, a fan, to some not so friendly feedback, like “THIS PAPER SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” posted yesterday by Facebook user, Ingrid Dasilva.
NYT reporters’ personal Facebook pages are accessible via “Favorite Pages” of which there are 33.
Finally, to increase its social media following, the NYT uses its Facebook, to advertise Twitter.
The general NYT Twitter offers home page stories, usually updated at least every hour. So far, there have been 45,345 tweets with a following of 2,423,621. While these tweets are kept fairly general, pages for specific topics and reporters are easily found on the list of 189 Twitter accounts that the NYT follows.
A major following via Facebook and Twitter proves that the NYT knows what it’s doing when it comes to social media. But for them, that wasn’t enough.
And then, there was TimesPeople.
The NYT describes TimesPeople as, “a social network for Times readers. But it’s not a social network like Facebook or MySpace — you won’t have Times friends, and it won’t get you Times dates. Instead, you’ll assemble a network of Times readers. Then you’ll be able to share interesting things on NYTimes.com with others in the network.”
Users have the ability to use Twitter with the NYT online, but to do so, they must link their Twitter account to their TimesPeople account. Once this is done, users need only click the “Twitter” link accompanying most articles, blog posts, and multimedia features, to tweet about the content.
If you thought it stopped there, you’re mistaken.
TimesPeople can also be linked to a user’s Facebook profile, via the TimesPeople Facebook application.
They’ve just thought of everything…haven’t they?
The NYT: Writing for the Web?
In the time I have spent reviewing the New York Times online, I have gotten more than just a glimpse into the general writing style they use.
According to the Online Journalism Review, the best way to write for the web is to “distinguish yourself by writing in a clean, active, conversational style that will make your readers feel as comfortable reading your words as they feel when talking with a close friend.”
Writing for the web well is not that simple.
Because of this, the the criteria for doing so can be greatly expanded. This can then be applied to a news organization, like the NYT, and the various writing styles they employ.
According to the OJR online writing should be simple, but direct. News should be written in the active voice, using strong verbs. A perusal of the NYT homepage indicates that the leads of almost every top story have been written this way.
When it comes to the specifics, the NYT seems to be on the ball. Take, for example, their continuing coverage of the Times Square Bomb Scare. The most recent article on the subject was written with sources attributed and many contextual hyperlinks throughout. The links were always accessible via relevant proper names, keywords, and phrases, as the OJR says they should be. These varied from specifics, such as Faisal Shahzad to much more general terms, like Pakistan.
The OJR argues that for online writing to be easy to read, text blocks should not have more than five lines. In this article, of approximately 30 text blocks, there were eight that broke this rule. However, many of these only did so because they were made narrower by the plethora of multimedia elements and widgets included with the story.
It is the use of elements like these that makes the NYT really shine. Stories come complete with links to related content, videos, photos, timelines, discussions, and just about everything else.
Could they improve?
Yes. No one’s perfect. The OJR lists many formatting devices that can be used to break up a story, including bold headers, block quotes, and lists.
Improvements can always be made, but when it comes to writing style, it seems like the NYT has the right idea.
SEO at the NYT
It is hardly news that the success of online media has led to massive changes within the journalism industry.
When it comes to Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, the implications are only now being realized.
An article appeared in the print edition of today’s New York Times: “A Russian Orphanage Offers Love and Care, but Few Ways Out.” Finding this same on the NYT website indicates that the staff of the publication recognized that changes had to be made, when it came to the online version’s headline.
How do we know? Because they’ve changed it.
“Russian Orphanage Offers Love, But Not Families.”
Each word comprising an online story’s headline must have a real reason for being chosen. In this case, the simple trade of the generic “few ways out” for “families” specifies the headline and in turn the article. It is these specifics that will make the article stand out, even with the endless amount of traffic passing through a site like Google, each day.
For another example, take the recent Times Square Bomb scare. The NYT online has published a plethora of stories noting each development. The vast majority of these articles have headlines that are concise; specific enough to be searched, but general enough to be found. Even now, a few days after the event, simply searching the term “bomb” in Google News leads us right to the New York Times.
And that’s exactly what they want.
However the NYT, like most publications, still has work to do. For example among the well-written headlines of the bomb scare, there is “Auto Businessmen Briefly at Bomb Inquiry’s Focus.” In the end, what are the chances of these being chosen as the keywords to this story? Unlikely.
In actuality, this headline fails to even sum up the point of the story. Something like, “Bomb Investigation: The Search for Suspects” could have done this much better.
Beyond the basic obligation of using a headline to sum up a story, writers must keep their medium in mind. For example, the headline “Free Speech Through the Foggy Lens of Election Law” provides little in the way of words leading to this story. A more effective headline, comprised of specific keywords could be something like “Campaigns: Corruption through Contribution?”
In the end, news headlines and SEO reinforce that same lesson: what worked in the past may not, in the present. What was best for print may not be best online. Journalism is changing, and we must change with it.
