Increasingly, on newspaper websites, I see “Most Viewed,” “Most popular” and “Most Linked” lists. Having my own blog, I know that these types of features can help increase the amount of time that people spend on a site and interlinking helps spread page rank throughout the site.

But as a visitor to these sites, the lists leave me wondering. I want to know how they’re calculated, how frequently they’re updated and what span of time they supposedly cover. But I find that few, if any, sites that I was able to find, provide even a piece of that transparency.

For a lot of visitors, the technology behind a website could just as well be witchcraft. They don’t know the Java on their computer screen from the java in their cup. By the time they come to your site, many of them have already had mixed experiences with recommendation engines on sites like Amazon or Digg. I include myself in that category and I’m sure you could as well. I mean how many times have you visited Amazon only to be recommended a product that left you shaking your head and wondering what it had to do with you?

So what can you do?

First of all, if your site doesn’t already have a most popular list, get one going; it really can make a difference.

Secondly, make it clear what the list is — is it “Most Popular” of the day, week or month? For example, if you dig deeper into the New York Times’s list, you’ll find that they offer a 3, 7 or 30 day list as well as what I guess is a daily list. Now I’m not saying you have to go as far as multiple lists, but you can state the period it covers. Find a place on your site to explain how the list works and include how often it is updated.

Finally, cross promote it. There is no reason why you can’t include in print what the previous day’s most popular story was and where readers can normally find this information on your site. Doing all of this will help drive more traffic to your site, keep people on it longer, spread your page rank, oh and make me happy.

Many newspapers have created space on their homepages to highlight news that is breaking or new. Often these columns or sections are given a headline of “Breaking News,” “News Updates” or “Latest Headline.” Readers, I believe, expect to find just that — current news of some significance, be that crime, political or weather-related stories, etc. If that’s what they expect, what are we actually giving them?

When I looked around at newspaper sites this morning, I found the following items:

State of the Union Address Tonight (Breaking News)
Alpaca farms on the rise in NJ (News Updates)
February Family Calendar (Latest Headlines)
Mostly Sunny and breezy (Breaking News)
Elizabeth Arden teams with Italian designer (Breaking News)

Now to me, these don’t seem like breaking news or even a latest headline or news update. To be fair there were other items that legitimately did fit in those categories, but my concern is that by including these types of stories we are essentially crying wolf — telling readers to look here for important, current news and then failing to follow through. This treatment, I would argue, ultimately impacts our credibility.

I recognize that sometimes news isn’t “breaking” or that possibly there is nothing that has been “updated.” So don’t call a story something that it’s not and don’t try to make your site appear to be producing something it is not. Highlight you real strengths, readers, are not stupid or so easily fooled. Keeping claiming that you’re providing something that you’re not and readers will look elsewhere.

A simple solution is changing your header and leaving, for example, breaking news for specific stories. The more difficult approach, but one that I think is worth considering is deciding what are your sites true strengths and leveraging those. Maybe you’re not a breaking news machine, but rather the undisputed master of local high school sports. If that is the case, then that is what you should be highlighting on your homepage.

This is clearly a site-specific issue and as such, there’s no right answer. But trying to be something you’re not, is clearly the wrong one.

How often do you bring your readers together? I know that probably sounds like a strange question and I can already imagine some of you sitting there shaking your heads as you read this, but seriously, how often do you get a group of readers (and even potential readers) together to talk?

This isn’t such a far-fetched idea, companies of all types and sizes use Consumer Panels to provide insight and feedback. Your newspaper might even have Reader Panels that they use to provide reaction to design or marketing ideas or on specific types of coverage. For example, typically before launching a Young Reader publication, many newspapers will gather a group of readers and potential readers to gauge their reaction to the proposed product and solicit their thoughts on the look and feel.

So why shouldn’t you, as an individual reporter, benefit from this approach. Thanks to a number of online websites, you too can assemble your own reader panel and use it to provide you with feedback on your work, suggestions for new stories or even insight on local current events.

One option is to use Meetup.com. This popular website helps bring together people who share a variety of interest. You could use the site to create, for example, an education group for your area. Once you have registered and created your group, Meetup will then reach out to registered members located in or near your community to announce the event. You can also point people to it via your own newsletter or your social network profiles.

Two things to keep in mind about Meetup: 1) You can keep your group private, which means that you get approve members and only those you’ve approved can see details about the gathering. 2) Meetup costs money, there are currently 3 price plans:

• $12 a month for 6 months (a single $72 charge)
• $15 a month for 3 months (a single $45 charge)
• $19 a month

The other way to approach forming your own reader panel is to use evite.com. Now evite won’t help you identify potential panel members, but will help with the organization of the event. If you have a sizeable source list and/or mailing list for your newsletter, then this might be the better way to go. This online service is free and easy. Basically you select a design for your invite, complete the required fields pertaining to the where and when and enter the contact information for your invitees and hit send. From there, evite takes over.

No matter if you decide to Meetup or evite, you need some place to host the gathering. I would not, definitely not, recommend your home. Chances are your local library or municipal building has meeting rooms that you can sign-up to use. Your newspaper might also allow you to use a conference room, so check with your editor. For a smaller group, there is nothing saying that you can’t hold your gathering at a local coffee shop, McDonalds or on a nice day, at a local park.

Before you get together draft an agenda, think about a theme or a question that you can use to frame the group’s conversation. Since part of the goal is to get feedback on your recent work, I would suggest emailing a couple of relevant and recent piece to the participants and bring some hardcopies. Make sure to thank everyone for coming and giving you some of their limited time. If you can have some food (heck a box of cookies and a gallon of milk would suffice) consider it, although it’s far from a deal-breaker. And don’t forget your business cards!

I think you’ll find these gatherings fun and valuable. I think your participants will get something out of them as well. And I think your editors will even take notice; you might even start a trend in your newsroom.

So before telling you to go out and do this, I need to give some credit to a colleague from Ottaway, Sean Polay, for suggesting that there might be ways for newspapers to use Meetup groups.

With that said, go get your group together and make sure to let me know how it goes.

Who do you share your work with? I can recall working the city desk on the weekend and watching reporters sitting with a stack of newspapers cutting out their stories to send to sources, family and, of course, save for themselves. While I’m sure that this exercise still occurs at newspapers throughout the world, my question is why stop there?

Yes, I understand the desire to prove to your parents that the tens of thousands of dollars they spent on J-School was well worth it or to show your sources that you did indeed quote them correctly, but while your at it why don’t you share your work with everyone else? I think reporters should avail themselves of all online opportunities to highlight their work.

Every time your newspaper publishes a story you wrote on its website or in its printed paper, they’re doing it to help sell newspapers and/or draw people to the website and not to showcase your skill as a reporter or advance your career. Your newspaper is not concerned if your work is noticed, recognized, admired or even emulated. And while I agree that it’s not their job, I would argue that it is yours.

Fortunately the Internet makes it easy for you to promote your work. Websites like Digg, StumbleUpon, ShoutWire, Reddit, Mixx, Publish2.0 and many others can get your stories noticed by a broader local audience and readers (including many in the industry) from around the world. As you know, a story that makes it to the front page of say a site like Digg can be viewed by tens of thousands of people. So why shouldn’t you get some of that attention?

Even if you are happy with the job that you have and don’t have any immediate plans to look for a new gig, your work deserves recognition. Not sold? Look around some of these sites and you’ll see work from your newspaper has likely already been submitted — sometime even by someone at your newspaper. This is not a foreign concept, bloggers (myself included) frequently submit their work to these sites. It’s not just about drawing visitors to our sites, rather many bloggers believe they have a message that deserves a wider audience, can’t the same be said for some of your stories?

It doesn’t take long to submit to most of these sites, actually some even have toolbars, buttons and widgets designed to make submitting even easier. Many of you likely even have buttons on your sites to placed so readers will submit stories to Digg or Reddit or others. So take the time and push your work. Share your stories with that broader audience. Your newspaper will gain as a result of the additional site visitors your work might bring and who knows, you might even gain a better gig or even just the knowledge that you’re doing a good job.

Continuing the theme I began yesterday, I’m going to focus on another way for you to not only keep, but advance your reporting career. This is one of those ideas that I truly believe newspaper companies should be already doing as a matter of course. But since many are not, I encourage you to do it on your own.

I used a question for the headline of this post because my thought for today involves converting the staid business card into a tool for the modern reporter. Most newspapers still provide business cards to their reporters. They’re typically the traditional fare with the name of the newspaper, mailing address, reporter’s name, title, phone number, email address and maybe web address. But that’s it and sometimes, they feature even less. I still see business cards that don’t include email addresses, forcing reporters to write them on the blank side. And there’s the missed opportunity.

There are many ways, beyond email, snail-mail and the telephone, that readers can now interact with reporters. Many reporters have profiles on sites such as Twitter or Pownce, Digg, Reddit or StumbleUpon not to mention Facebook or MySpace. Each of these sites can provide them with exposure to a new community filled with issues and potential stories. But readers need to be able to find them, they need to know where reporters are and how to reach them. That’s where the blank side of your business card comes in.

I’m proposing that you get yourself some double sided business cards. One side should contain the traditional information and the other, your profile names for the sites that you’re on. This way when you distribute your business cards, you’ll be maximizing the opportunities for interaction.

As I wrote earlier, I really think newspapers should be taking this approach with every business card they get printed. But if they’re not, you should be doing it for yourself. Now, I know what many of you are going to say — “Business cards are expensive and I can’t afford to buy my own cards on my paltry salary.” Well a quick search on Google and I was able to find 250 doubled-sided business cards going for anywhere from $15 to $22 — not bad.

My advice is bring this idea up with your supervisor or editor, explain the benefits of providing readers with all these different ways to interact with you. And if they won’t pay for it, make the investment for yourself. This is one investment in your own career I think you’ll find well worth it.

NOTE: I’m proud to be participating, along with fellow journalism bloggers from around the world in the Carnival of Journalism. In addition to reading my post please visit the Carnival host site and see what my colleagues are writing about. Not sure what a blog carnival is? Check out this entry on Wikipedia.

OK, so enough talking about ways to save the newspaper industry or the local newspaper. How about spending some time on something way more important, like how to save and advance your own reporting career? Well I’ve got an idea that will impress your editors, make your colleagues jealous and even make your job easier.

One of the challenges reporters face in covering any beat, be it municipal or specialty, is developing sources and proving to the people you cover (who increasingly don’t read your newspaper at least not the print version) that you actually DO write about them. An approach that I’ve encouraged my reporters to use is to publish their own email newsletter, call it “[insert reporters name]‘s Weekly Update.”

To me a solution a that incorporated a technology that reporters are already using makes the most sense. Additionally, I thought that we needed something that allowed us to leverage the newspaper’s website and that would increase the lines of communication.

The idea is really simple. Most reporters already have a source list that hopefully includes some email addresses. Additionally, here’s a great opportunity to reach out and get the addresses they don’t have. I don’t advise that you blindly harvest emails from the Internet as it will likely violate your paper’s email policy. You should send your Update at the end of the week (the exact day is up to you, but stick to it) and include:

1. An introduction that includes an overview of the week, including any big events that occurred.
2. A list of the articles you’ve written including links and a summary of each piece (heck, grab your lede or the top few graphs).
3. A numerical count of all the times the town, institution or agency appeared in the paper. Most people don’t have the helicopter view that would include news, sports, features, communities, etc.
4. A sampling of events in the upcoming week that you’re planning on covering.
5. You can also use this to ask a question of the group or look for people to interview about a specific topic.
6. All of your contact information. This should include your phone numbers, email address, and social network site profiles.
7. And most, most importantly, encourage people to forward the newsletter to other interested parties or to provide you with the email addresses and you’ll include them in the next mailing.

Key to this effort is, like many other things, consistency. You have to do it every week regardless of what else is going on. People will come to expect it. They still might not read the print paper, but they will read your email. Keep in mind that you may have new readers so make sure that your introduction every week explains who you are and what your are trying to do. I think you’ll find that the newsletter will help build trust and respect with sources and increase your reach in your beat.

Do these actually work? I have seen reporter’s newsletters start with a few dozen recipients and grow into the hundreds. People will forward it along to others and new email addresses will be passed along to you. As a result:

• your editors will like your newsletter because you’ll be increasing the number of sources and as a result deepening your ties to your beat.
• your publisher will like you because you will be helping to grow the newspaper’s brand.
• your sources will like you because you’ll be helping them stay abreast of the news they need to know.
• your Online Director will like you because the links in your emails will help drive people to the website.

This is an approach that can work for a junior, senior or even a freelance reporter. A great side benefit is that help reporters keep track of their own productivity, keep their tickler list up-to-date and even stay on top of stories that need follow-ups.

I encourage you to give it a shot. I think you’ll find it both satisfying and rewarding and please, include me (yonigre (at) gmail dot com) on your list.

NOTE: I’m proud to be participating, along with fellow journalism bloggers from around the world in the Carnival of Journalism. In addition to reading my post please visit the Carnival host site and see what my colleagues are writing about. Not sure what a blog carnival is? Check out this entry on Wikipedia.

Primaries and caucuses can be a traffic boon for newspaper websites. The days leading up to Election Day, the day of and even the days immediately thereafter can bring thousands and thousands of new unique visitors and possibly tens of thousands additional page views (and many, many, many more for larger papers).

While most newsrooms are great when it comes to planning content to draw people to their sites, how many really focus on content that will keep them coming back? The question seems to be how do you transition an occasional visitor to your site to a regular visitor? Think about what keep just 2 or 3 percent of those new visitors would mean to your stats. So, what are you going to do to keep them?

Online staffs in New Hampshire, Iowa and Michigan, what did you do? What worked and what didn’t? What advice would you have for newspapers in states that haven’t gone on this fun ride yet?

6:08 p.m. (EST) Thank you Shawn (see comments) for pointing out that Michigan hasn’t happened yet. It is Wyoming that help their Republican primary on Jan. 5. So Wyoming newspapers, what tips do you have?

Is it a bad thing if the New York Times is repurposing blog content for print?

On Wednesday, New York Observer Leon Neyfakh, reported in his “Off the Record” column that the Times was planning on printing portions of the “City Room” blog in the daily newspaper.

“While items from City Room are regularly repackaged as Metro stories and published in the paper—three short dispatches from Albany might be synthesized into one article for the next day’s paper . . . articles from the blog that run in the print edition could appear under a clearly marked “City Room” banner,” Neyfakh wrote.

This would not be the first time that the Times has repurposed online content for print, two other blogs, Bits and the Caucus, regularly appear “in the print edition in the form of discrete columns.”

According to Neyfakh, part of the thinking at the Times is that reverse-publishing the blog will “give more exposure to the City Room brand” and “drive print readers to the Web site.”

Well good for the New York Times!

Personally, I would like to see more publications not just working harder to drive more print readers to the web, but also repurposing more web content for print.

The first point should be obvious; newspapers have two audiences that don’t completely overlap, so here’s a great opportunity to increase online audience by leveraging print audience. In-print promotions or teasers and house ads are great but I don’t think they can compete with quality content in terms of demonstrating to print readers what they can expect online. Kind of like a car brochure can’t replace the experience of a test drive.

As for the second point, I’ve previously written about how I don’t think it makes sense to keep filling the “A” section with outdated and possibly irrelevant wire copy, one of the most popular objections is that if newspapers were to make this change, they wouldn’t have enough content to fill the pages. Well, BINGO! Here’s a great opportunity to showcase your online content and help fill those pages. In addition to reverse-publishing blogs (ala New York Times) what about

• Publishing excerpts from online forums? In-print game coverage could include excerpts of fans debating their favorite play from your sports forum or political coverage could include readers commenting on the issues of the day.
• Including online comments with the print story. Show print readers some of the online reaction and invite them to have their say on your site.
• Online Poll results. Use your online polls to frame your print issues.

What’s great about these approaches is that they don’t require an expansion of the existing news-hole and allow you to take advantage of existing resources.

And let’s not forget the revenue-generating reverse-publishing possibilities. Everything from car sales to real estate can find a place in this model.

If you’re already reverse-publishing or doing something similar to what I’ve suggested, let me know how it’s going.