I need your help. No, I was not robbed while on vacation and am not trapped in some foreign city – I just need your vote. That’s right, your VOTE.

Kevin Sablan of the Orange County Register and Bill Adee of the Chicago Tribune and myself (representing Philadelphia Media Network) are trying to get our panel “Survivalist News: How Far WIll You Go for Readers” accepted for SXSW 2012.

Organized by Sheigh Crabtree of Perfect Market, this is one of a bunch of panels attempting to focus on the news industry, but in my unbiased estimation, the very best. Here’s a description of what we’ll attempt to do:

The Survivalist Newsroom: How Far Will You Go to Get Readers? In today’s frenetic media world, it’s never been more difficult for media companies to attract readers. They’ve used sophisticated search technologies, content seeding, social media, promotions, and splashy homepages to try to lure the most eyeballs possible to their sites. But how far would you go to get readers? In this session, hear from one newspaper that decided to sell Android tablets with its content pre-loaded at a massive discount, juts to get readers in the door. Hear how they also used games, giveaways, and sophisticated data-mining content management techniques to successfully increase readership.

Not bad, right?

Well here is where you come in. This year, with nearly 4,000 sessions submitted for the week (March 9-18), your votes and comments will account for about 30% of the decision-making process. The balance of the decision comes from the SXSW Advisory Board, which is a group of industry professionals from across the US and around the world and finally, the input of the SXSW staff. So please, vote. You can learn more about how to vote here. You can see the full description of our panel here.

So do Kevin, Bill and me a favor and show your support and vote and, while you’re at it, feel free to express your enthusiasm about the session on the comments portion of the page

I’m excited to be able to share that I have been invited to represent Philadelphia Media Network and speak at Digital Content Monetization East 2011 taking place from October 11-14 in New York City.

For those of you not familiar with DCM East, it is “a multi-stream summit incorporating only the most senior strategists and decision-makers in Film, Sports, TV, Publishing, Games and Music” … “DCM East helps you to sort out the best short and medium terms strategies for delivering revenue through digital content.”

While I don’t yet have all the details (such as the when and where), I can tell you that it’s not a panel, but my own session. More details to follow, but if you’re thinking of attending, here is a link to register. And let me know if you’re going to be there!

I spent part of my Sunday morning visiting dozens of newspaper websites and by the time I was done I found myself wanting to scream. WAKE UP! LOOK AT WHAT YOU ARE DOING!

Too many of the sites I visited looked as if they’re frozen in time or, at the very least, not working with any sense of urgency. When I tweeted my observation:

“Where’s the innovation? Where’s the experimentation? Don’t see most newspaper sites doing anything different or new. What happened?”

Steve Yelvington came back with this on-point response:

“Biggest risk of organizational (i.e., newsroom) convergence is a loss of imagination and innovative spirit.”

While I agree with his comment, I just don’t feel like any of these sites can afford to rest on their laurels or to be stuck in neutral. With marketing budgets at many newspapers shrinking or disappearing altogether, for the most part, it’s up to the individual web staffs to increase metrics such as page views, time or site and return visitors (for example).

What concerns me even more is that I’m not sure the people at any of these sites realize that they have a problem. On too many occasions I’ve heard the cliché “if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”.

I once worked for a VP who said something along the lines of “if you’ve been doing it for the past 20 years, then it’s time to change what you’ve been doing.” With that in mind, I’ve got a suggestion for all the online staffers out there – consider this a low tech intervention. Take a piece of paper, or create a document and number the lines 1 through 10. Then, on each line, list something that you have done in the past three to six months at your site that you consider innovative or experimental.

For example:

1. Experimented with commenting
2. Incorporated user generated galleries
3. Staffed the site overnight, etc.

Now if you don’t want to do this brief exercise or if your list contains only one or two items, then I would suggest that you have a problem. I would even go so far as to predict that your site (barring the occasional Druge or Fark) is seeing traffic hold steady. While that might seem like a good thing, it really, really isn’t.

With print products struggling just to maintain their depleted numbers, online growth must occur and innovation and experimentation, I believe, is key to that growth.

Now before you run off and put floating eyeballs on your site, I would suggest first of all setting, at the very least, a monthly traffic goal. This will help you gauge the effectiveness of what you attempt and justify those changes or alterations to those you work with.

Once you have that done, try something. It doesn’t have to cost money even, as there is plenty of free tech that you can leverage. Want chats? Try CoveritLive. Want widgets that you can centrally update? Try SproutBuilder. The list goes on and on.

And as you go, share your successes and your stumbles. Just like we’re seeing more cooperation on the content side between news outlets, we need to see more cooperation on the tech side (more on this another time).

Now lets get down to innovating and experimenting and be sure to let me know how it goes.

That’s right, it’s time for another Carnival of Journalism and this month, I’m proud to be hosting. Not sure what a blog carnival is? Check out this entry on Wikipedia. The Carnival of Journalism includes posts from some of the brightest minds currently blogging on journalism, in my humble opinion.

The Carnival gets underway with a post from John Hassell of the exploding newsroom fame. For those of you who don’t know, John is the online editor at the Star-Ledger of Newark, NJ. He enters the carnival with “A day in the life of a big local story.” Want to see how a major daily fires all guns at a story? Then check out his post.

Not wanting there to be only one John at the Carnival, John Ndege offers “Out Scooping the Wire News Services.” John Ndege is a great blogger whose insights go beyond journalism. If you are earching for some guidance in this crazy journalism/Internet world, take a stroll through his blog. For the Carnival, he ponders the future of news wire services and the impact of services like Twitter.

Soon to graduate from the University of South Florida, Wendy Withers offers the Carnival a post with some great “Advice for college journalists: Online portfolios.” Wendy has always offered some great insights (it has a spot in my reader) and this post is no different. Her tips could be the difference between a graduate moving into their own pad and starting a job or moving into their parents attic and looking for work.

Think we’re done? Wait! There’s more to come so keep checking back as more posts will continue to go up. Have your own thoughts? Drop a comment below and let people know what you are thinking.

See, I told you we weren’t done yet.

Charlie Beckett, someone who seemingly wears more hats then I can capture in a few witty words, reminds us that sometimes there is good writing beyond the blogosphere with his book review of Can You Trust The Media? by Adrian Monck. Full disclosure, Adrian also participates in the Carnival of Journalism (see below). Read the review and, dare I say, buy the book.

Moving back across the pond, Jack Lail, managing editor/multimedia for The Knoxville News-Sentinel (someone who always manages to be blogging — how he pulls that off I’ll never understand) offers “The ‘Golden Age’ of Web news.” His posts always give me something to chew on for a few days and this one isn’t any different:

All-media-meets on the Web has created a local news and advertising battlezone in market-after-market the likes of which I’ve never seen in a 30-plus-year career.

The author himself, Adrian Monck, takes a moment to address some of the observations about his book in “Can You Trust The Media? – Review.”

Think the Carnival’s done? Not quiet, check back later for more.

And before I could hit “Save,” along comes Andy Dickinson, faculty member at the University of Central Lancashire and prolific blogger (and apparently wine drinker) offers “What is a picture worth?” Although he describes it as a “bit of a ramble of nice words and tricky pictures,” I don’t think I’d be that harsh. Give it a read and let Andy know what you think.

I believe that the phrase “no one can do it all and frankly no one should” must be part of the discussion at any newspaper serious about their online operation.

As I wrote in a previous post, there is a growing sentiment at many papers that there are just too few people to tackle what seems like ever-growing to-do lists. What concerns me about that reaction is that I fear it reflects organizations who are only considering the first “no one can do it all” part of the above phrase.

While organizations can keep on increasing the responsibilities for their reporters, editors, photographers or producers, the reality is quality will suffer and morale will decline. In my mind, it should not be a case of simply adding, but of adding and subtracting. I would encourage you to look for redundancies or places where you can leverage either your existing print or online operation.

For example:

• Is the same content being entered twice, once for print and once for online?
• Is there work that either readers can do or that technology can assist with? For example can letter to the editor be scanned rather then manually entered in your editorial system or can readers be encouraged to complete an online form?
• Could reporters provide a list of the websites they used to research a story to help enhance it when it appears online?
• Can copy editors provide a web headline when they come up with the print headline?

I know these are rather basic suggestions, but my point is — if you look at your process before you simply start handing out new responsibilities, you might find that either you can replace existing duties or that someone is already doing it, but in a way you didn’t see. In a time when being efficient is key, it’s inefficient to blindly hand out new tasks.

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.

The Palm Beach Post has decided to actually do what so many people in journalism have only been willing to talk about. But with the exception of a few blog posts including one from Erica Smith of graphicdesignr.net fame, that news has largely gone ignored.

Just about a week ago, Managing Editor Bill Rose announced in a memo, “it’s time to change.” Rose went on to make a compelling argument:

“For too long, we’ve stuck with a structure that was designed to serve a print newspaper. We’ve sort of grafted the Internet onto that and it’s worked, but not nearly well enough. Especially in this time of economic uncertainty, we cannot continue to do things the same way we’ve done them for decades upon decades. The Internet now represents a significant and growing source of revenue at a time when our revenue is not what it used to be. For us to make the Web an afterthought would be pretty foolhardy.”

Highlights of what they are doing include:

• Metro now called the Breaking News Department.
• Reporters and editors in the former metro department first priority will be to file all breaking news to the Web as soon as possible.
• A print editor will supervise production of the Local section and the preparation of print stories for the newspaper.
• Most Metro editors and reporters will be working much earlier shifts, while several other editors and reporters will work even later shifts to handle print stories.
• A new Enterprise Department will be created, whose primary responsibility is serving the print newspaper. The enterprise team will produce a steady diet of investigative, enterprise and trend stories. It will also produce well-written “reads” or feature stories. Its stories should be aimed at Page One.
• Continue to hire more people into the Digital Department (Online), from inside — and outside — the building and will focus on not only beefing up and improving the daily production of our site but will increase focus on developing new products and other niche ideas.
• Business and Sports and Features will create Web pods within their own departments.The
  Features pod will initially consist of two producers for Accent and A&E.
• Studying the feasibility of a universal copy desk.
• Ultimately, begin to merge our print and online production operations. Traditional way of “putting out the newspaper” will eventually give way to a 24/7 production desk for the entire newsroom. Editors would simultaneously produce print and Web products.

I definitely think the Post’s efforts should be applauded and encouraged by everyone in the newspaper industry. We need more newsroom leaders who are willing to take the steps that Rose and his team are undertaking. And I think that in the coming weeks and months we all should take advantage of the opportunity to learn from their decisions. For today, I wanted to bring their ideas and approaches to your attention and hopefully get you thinking about this I approach, I know I am.

Too many newspaper websites are simply online recreations of their printed products. These sites do little to take advantage of the opportunities being online provide. And worse, what bad habits they have in print, they replicate online.

Case in point — long stories.

It is well known that “lack of time” is one of the main, if not the main, reasons why readers cancel their subscriptions. Many newspapers have tried to address this by offering shorter stories or, at the very least, reduce the number of long stories that they publish. In a memo last year to the staff of the Washington Post, Executive Editor Len Downie and Managing Editor Phil Bennett wrote:

“For too long we’ve confused length with importance. Often the result has been stories that readers don’t want to finish and displays in the newspaper that don’t do our journalism justice.”

This is not just a problem at the Washington Post and definitely not just a print issue. Look at this story from one of my local newspapers. Not counting the byline and tagline, this piece comes in at 1,808 words, which loosely translates to 48 inches long. In print, that is a long story. Online it is a really long story. And looking at it online it’s clear that it lost any of the ‘elegant’ design that it might have had in print. Actually online it’s just a pain. But it didn’t have to be.

While I’ve heard the argument that subheads can destroy a writers prose, I believe that you need those visual cues to help the reader, in-print and especially online. I would go so far as to support the idea that a long story without subheads, might just as well appear without paragraph marks. OK, maybe that is going too far, but seriously I think we need to keep the reader in mind, both when we write and when we present.

Some newspapers (New York Times, the Star Ledger, etc.,) will take a long story and break it up on multiple screens. Some sites even have a single page view for those who still relish the long form story. But even the papers that divide their stories between screen use subheads.

Now I’m not saying avoid all long stories. Honestly I think that would be a tragedy, but I think we can do a better job presenting them online.

What about you? How do you handle long stories?