A common refrain I heard in response to my post about enhancing stories was essentially, at many newspapers, there is not enough time and too few people to be doing that AND accomplish everything else they have to. Although I don’t necessarily agree with that analysis, I’m going to save my thoughts on time management for another day and instead offer a potential solution.

I think you need to first decide whether or not you believe that enhancing your stories has value. Do you think it is important to present something more then just what you offer in your daily paper? If the answer to either question is no, then you can stop reading here and I wish you a pleasant day. If your answer is yes, then read on.

One suggestion is to essentially allow all your content to have outbound links attached to them. Not sure what I’m talking about? Try visiting the New York Times’s website and open a story. Double-click on any word and “a new window will open with a dictionary definition or encyclopedia entry.” This has nothing to do with the minions who work at the Times or the large stacks of cash that the newspaper spends on technology, rather, it’s via a third-party vendor. The Times, like CBS News, partners with Answers.com.

Answers.com was founded in 1999 by Bob Rosenschein. So what is it? Well,

Answers.com is an advertising-supported, free website. Since its launch in January 2005, it has become one of the leading information portals on the Internet. Answers.com’s collection of over four million answers is drawn from over 180 titles from brand-name publishers, original content created by Answers.com’s own editorial team, community-contributed articles from Wikipedia, and user-generated questions & answers from Answers.com’s industry-leading WikiAnswers. The site offers useful answers in categories like business, health, travel, technology, science, entertainment, arts, history and many more.

The Times, CBS News, blogs (like editor on the verge) and other sites are using Answers.com’s AnswerTips “small information bubbles that define any word when double-clicked without opening a new browser or following outbound links. AnswerTips deliver instant definitions, explanations and facts including biographies, tech terms, geography, pop culture and much more.”

Using this service on your site would allow you to offer outbound links without having to have a designated staffer research and complete them. I’m not necessarily endorsing Answers.com, if there’s another comparative service or another way to approach this issue, I’m all ears. I just believe your losing out if you simple do nothing.

Honestly, I don’t understand newspapers who present their stories online as if they were publishing them on a printed page. It’s not just that lack of subheads in a 37-inch long story that frustrates me; it’s the complete ignorance of any web tools that could enhance story presentation and increase the amount of time readers spend on the site.

Sadly, far too many newspapers continue to treat their websites as simply the online version of their printed papers. I thought that it was widely understood at this point that you will never grow your online audience if all your do is reprint only what is in your daily newspaper.

Take this story from The Journal News (Yonkers, NY) about the increasing frequency with which local police are arresting mothers who are driving while intoxicated.

“There has been an increase in the number of mothers arrested for driving while intoxicated with children in the car, said Bob Watson, supervising probation officer for Westchester County’s DWI enforcement unit. He said that more mothers than fathers are on probation for the offense.”

I would say that this is an important story that deserves attention. So lets look at how it was presented.

To begin with, the article comes in at 1,164 words or 31.45-inches (using the 37-words-per-column-inch equation). While that is not a huge story (a front-page New York Times story on presidential campaign fundraising comes in 600 words longer), it is not a quick read.

My immediate thought is that the story does needs subheads. During my initial read, I counted four places where subheads could have been used to help the reader navigate the story and to emphasize key points.

In addition to those two points, the story lacks any outbound links. I counted nearly a dozen instances where links to external sites could have enhanced the story including:

• Alcoholics Anonymous
• National Council on Alcoholism & Drug Dependence
• Westchester County Police

Perhaps even more important then outbound links, the story has no internal links. Given that the reporter cited about 10 recent cases, I would believe that the newspaper has written about more then just a few of them. And actually a look through their (paid) archives saw at least 20 links to just one of those cases.

And finally, along the same line, additional photos from previous stories.

I would argue that these suggestions only scratch the surface. An argument could have also been made, for example, for a video or audio-only interview(s) or even the inclusion of a poll.

Lohud is not alone, visit newspaper websites across the country, and you’ll find many similar examples of sites failing to engage readers. It’s a problem, I would offer, that has an easy fix. This is the type of issue that needs to be consciously built into the workflow, one possibility is to even make it the responsibility of one or a few people.

Don’t think that you can make all of the changes to add all the components I’ve suggested? Well, start by picking just one, perhaps previous stories and once you’ve got that a regular part of the process, add another.

No matter what you decide, don’t just offer the same old; that’s a mistake you might find you won’t be able to make for much longer.

When was the last time that you went through your closet? Is there a chance you still have a Members Only jacket or a pair of parachute pants? Over the years have you added new pieces to your wardrobe without getting rid of the old? Are you at a point where you just don’t know what you have?

Well, minus the jacket, pants and maybe denim overalls, the same description can also be applied to many newspaper websites.

Over the years many sites new content, features, sections and even navigation are added only to be pushed to the virtual back and forgotten. The situation is further complicated by staffing churns that strip newsrooms of institutional memory, so what is old is quickly forgotten. Approaches such as site audits or even Spring Cleanings aren’t commonly practiced. So everything just builds and builds and builds.

As a reader of these sites, I’ve come across special sections for three-year-old events, coverage of previous elections or long forgotten education issues. Seeing this type of outdated content causes me to question the reliability and quality of the entire site. While I understand that in theory online space is unlimited, that doesn’t mean that you never have to thrown anything away.

To help you avoid this problem, here are some ideas for avoiding online clutter:

• Create a sitemap for your website and update it often. This will allow you to keep track of what you have and where, on the site, it’s living.
• Use a calendar to note when new or special sections go live.
• Schedule periodic site audits (refer back to your calendar or sitemap) to review your site and discuss how to handle outdated content.

So those are a few suggestions from me, what are your approaches to dealing with this issue and when are you going to get rid of that Members Only jacket?

One of my former newspapers, a Gannett owned publication in Cherry Hill, NJ, recently unveiled it’s redesign. While it appears very similar to the Pluck-based redesigns released by other Gannett newspapers, I’m finding something a bit distracting.

Maybe it’s me, what I can’t get past is all the “Summary text. Summary text. Summary text” and “This article is of the test phylum” and “test image.” Oh, and I can’t forget my favorite, the dreaded “The page could not be found (404).” That’s right, the site is littered with dummy or boiler-plate text and broken links. And what makes it even worse, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Now I fully understand everything that goes into a relaunch, but really, I wish the Courier-Post would have taken the time before they threw the switch to make sure that everything was where it should be and that they had removed everything that should be removed.

As I’ve said before, this is no way to treat your readers. To me, and I think other Courier-Post readers, these issues smack of poor project management and poor quality control.

And what particularly bothers me, is that this did not have to happen. Even if Gannett had ordered the newspaper to go live with the site by a certain date, I would like to believe that they would prefer to be late and have a completed and working site then to be on time with this site. If I’m wrong, and they don’t mind these errors and mistakes permeating one of their sites then shame on them.

How do you ensure this doesn’t happen when you do a redesign? What advice do you have for other sites?

How fast can you turn your ship?

When I look at many newspaper websites, I just can’t help but wonder why some stories are in a featured homepage slot and, even more so, why they remain there for so long.

I recognize that every market has it’s own issues and what is a popular story in say North Jersey, might not work in Ann Arbor, Michigan. So while I sometimes wonder if “Gardening to Extremes” deserves top billing, I will ultimately bow to the taste judgment of local editors. But what I will question is why that and many other stories keep that top billing throughout the day?

Looking at a variety of sites I see a couple of patterns at work: There are sites that keeps their top stories in place until there is breaking news. There are the sites that rotate content based on the time of day. There are the sites that don’t change anything and even breaking news is only treated as an update. And then there are those that appear to take an approach that I think all sites should emulate. The producers and editors at these news sites let their audience guide them.

It make little to no sense to me to keep a story in one of your prime spots if it’s not drawing an audience. Honestly, I don’t care if it was the top of 1A and you think it’s a hoot or the most important story “evah”, if it’s not bringing them in, then what are you achieving?

How do you deal with this at your newspaper? Do you pay attention to your analytics and let the numbers be your guide? I know that previous posts both here and elsewhere have caused readers to bristle over the use of analytics. But come on, can you argue that knowing what is or isn’t working or your site is really a bad thing? Newspapers spend a lot of money for analytics. Omniture, one of those more popular services starts at $20,000 and easily climbs from there. If all you are using it to find out what was popular before the morning meeting or on the previous day, then I would argue that you’re wasting good money.

So back to that nautical talk. I think you should be able to change the direction your site is going as frequently and as often as you find necessary, that you’re always offering your best content (whatever that may be). My suggestion is that you come to an agreement on a threshold for keeping or moving content based whichever metric you want use, and then, by golly, tack to the starboard or tack to the port, but turn your ship.

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.

Don’t do this to your readers. This is why you should test your site before you launch. Take that extra day or two or three and make sure everything, including your links, work and that you’ve remembered to remove dummy copy.