One theme that I have been noticing throughout bootcamp is the idea that established news organizations just don’t seem to get new media. Jim Brady’s account of working as the executive editor of washingtonpost.com. While major newspapers bring prestige with the name, they also bring the “baggage of an old legacy brand.”
Brady said that when he first helped launch the Washington Post’s Web site, the attitude he encountered was, “Who wants to get information that way?” With newspapers, the print publication will always come before the online edition.
The Problem with Print
In order to appeal to the widest segment of readers, newspapers have to be general interest publications. This may work in print, but according to Brady, the general interest model doesn’t work on the Web. Because there is such a wide range of content online, for a Web site to do well, it should find its niche and do it well.
Print publications are also so focused on beating the competition that they do not look at Web sites as a way to share information, but as a way to expand revenue. Web sites instead provide a way for the author to share their expertise and the readers to interact.
“You can’t just produce a site assuming you’re the only one writing about that topic,” Brady said. “You have to make yourself the go-to source.”
Rather than acting like readers will not go to any othe Web site if you don’t remind them to, it is necessary to create a community – to share links to related sites and to interact with readers.
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