Lookie Lou isn't really a customer

Submitted by yelvington on November 27, 2009 - 10:27am

Danny Sullivan is getting a lot of points for his post beating up on News Corp. titled If Newspapers Were Stores, Would Visitors Be “Worthless” Then?

Far be it from me to defend Rupert Murdoch.

But I have to take issue with the premise that newspaper executives are idiots for not realizing the immense value of random visitors from random places who stumble across a newspaper story.

It ain't there.

As so often is the case, Sullivan uses an analogy, then takes it to absurdity:

A professional journalist embarrasses himself in Jackson, Tenn.

Submitted by yelvington on November 24, 2009 - 8:15pm

As Thanksgiving approaches, perhaps we all should stop and give thanks that we have not, recently at least, made fools of ourselves quite as thoroughly as did Jackson (Tenn.) Sun editorial page editor Tom Bohs when he admonished "citizen journalists:"

"If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out."

You too, Tom.

Some advice to designers of news websites

Submitted by yelvington on November 15, 2009 - 9:00am

This morning I ran across a note at drupal.org from a beginning designer asking for a critique of his attempt to design a news site. The attempt led me to focus on some weaknesses that are common to many professionally designed sites.

There are too many "redesigns" of news sites, and the typical redesign process is set up for failure. It goes like this:

Keller's list of 7 priorities should be every newsroom's list

Submitted by yelvington on November 3, 2009 - 9:54am

I often point out that the New York Times is in a very different business than the typical local/regional daily newspaper in the United States.

But listening to Bill Keller tell the NYT Digital crew his list of seven "questions that loom largest to us at the moment," I'm struck by how perfectly it aligns with the key newsroom issues at every daily newspaper in America.

If you're not acutely aware of all of these, you have some homework to do.

Keller's list:

Government-supported journalism

Submitted by yelvington on November 1, 2009 - 9:53am

Writing for the Washington Post, Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols advocate a renewed government effort to support journalism.

This has sparked a predictable round of mild paranoia (government support can become government control).

But it might be useful to take a look at the many ways in which government already contributes to journalism, through funding and policy, in ways that benefit the citizenry of the United States.

The big obvious examples are broadcasting.

Slate's ill-informed pageview whoring

Submitted by yelvington on October 28, 2009 - 10:49am

Isn't Slate supposed to be above the level of "random Internet troll?" One wonders after reading the anti-Drupal rant by Slate Washington correspondent Chris Wilson, who first claims to explain "Why running the White House Web site on Drupal is a political disaster waiting to happen," then fails to do so. Wilson's complaints about Drupal are universally wrong in fact, but the kicker is that he finishes up with this quip:

Much ado about nothing

Submitted by yelvington on October 19, 2009 - 8:39pm

There is a great disturbance in the Force today; lots of 140-character mini-rants about CJR's "The Reconstruction of American Journalism" by Len Downie and Michael Shudson.

Apparently no one is happy. Some of the reactions are puzzling, apparently aimed at some other enemy, sort of like the way people rant about an imaginary grandma-killing Obama at a health-care town hall meeting.

Seven keys to building healthy online community

Submitted by yelvington on September 20, 2009 - 10:18am

I've been running successful online communities since the mid-1980s when I first got a modem, discovered bulletin boards, and wound up running one. Over the years I've discovered a few things about how to do it right. Here are seven keys to the kingdom:

  1. Make it a priority.

    Quit whining that it's so much trouble to deal with commenting and community interaction. That's why they call it work. Be glad you have a chance to do it.