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Welcome to the Digital Edge Blog!
The Digital Edge Blog focuses on developments, trends, best practices and more in newspaper digital media. The blog launched in 2006 (archives before August 2008 are here).
We look forward to reading your comments and contributions to the Digital Edge Blog. Questions? E-mail Beth Lawton at beth.lawton@naa.org.
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September 2008 - Posts
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With the new NAA Community, you may have noticed that NAA
has launched a bunch of new blogs. A few of particular interest to Digital Edge
Blog readers:
Opportunopoly:
Melinda Gipson brings her good business sense, digital media knowledge and wit
to NAA with her new blog. Today, she wrote about Yahoo's new APT product.
Presstime Now:
Our team of Presstime reporters brings you news updates and articles between issues
of the magazine. Earlier this week, John Heys reported from the NAA Retail
Advertising Forum in Dallas.
Revenue:
The name says it all. Mort Goldstom and his advertising team give advice,
showcase best practices and more in this blog dedicated to helping you increase
your revenue.
Growing Audience:
Coming soon - Diane Hockenberry, who authors the weekly, very popular Growing
Audience e-alert, will blog about engaging new audiences in print and online.
And, please check out our new e-forums. Shameless plug: You
should especially head over to the Digital Media Federation e-forum
(if you're a member of the federation) and talk about what you saw in the
latest editions of the Online Publishing Update.
From earlier today: A handful of ISPs told the Senate
Commerce Committee they would voluntarily obtain specific permission from
customers before they share data about Web usage with advertisers for
behavioral targeting. What do you think this means for newspapers? Our Public
Policy Department is following the issue closely, and NAA is interested in
hearing your thoughts on this important matter. Separately, tell us how much time your
reporters are spending on their newspaper blogs! (Technorati just came out with
some interesting stats about the amount of time bloggers spend posting.)
Not a Digital Media Federation member? If you read this blog
regularly, you should seriously consider a membership. You can sign up here.
(You'll have to sign in to NAA.org - but if you work for any newspaper company
that is a member of NAA, you can sign in easily!)
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This is too bad:The Maui News announced Tuesday that it is suspending all comments on all online stories because the comments have gotten a bit out of control. Citing “flagrant abuse,” the newspaper is now telling readers to submit letters to the editor instead, which are verified by the editorial staff.It doesn’t have to be this way. There are a boatload of technology-based and human-based ways to manage comments effectively and grow a productive and healthy community through a newspaper’s Web site. My favorite suggestion from NAA’s Online Community Cookbook was “disemvowelling.” Essentially, software removes all the vowels from an offensive comment automatically. T gts rlly dffclt t rd whn thr r n vwls. (It gets really difficult to read when there are no vowels.)Other suggestions: Have your reporters actually participate in the comments – people are less likely to be mean when they know someone at the newspaper is actually reading what they say. A lot more suggestions are in the Online Community Cookbook. The whole Online Community Cookbook – definitely one of my “worthy reads” – is available at www.naa.org/digitaledge/cookbook. Has your newspaper suspended (or considered suspending) comments entirely? What’s your favorite tip for keeping it civil?
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Greetings! The Digital Edge Blog has a new (better, nicer) home here on the NAA Community!
The blog started in 2006 to highlight trends and news and NAA's thoughts on digital media for newspapers. Archives from 2006 through last month are here. From now on, the Digital Edge Blog (and several others) will
be integrated into the NAA Community. The new RSS feed is here
- you will have to change your RSS reader setting to continue to receive blog entries there.
The NAA Community includes a ton of features that will help NAA members share, discuss and network. A lot more information about what you can do here is available in the NAA Community Blog. Also, please note that we now have an Online Publishing Update forum thread! Every month, we'll start a new
conversation with you about the OPU, and I'm looking forward to learning what you think are the most interesting, controversial or amusing parts the e-newsletter
Questions? Let me know at beth.lawton@naa.org
- or you can send me a private message through the new NAA Community by friending me!
Thanks for reading,
Beth Lawton
Manager, Digital Media
Newspaper Association of America
(571) 366-1037
beth.lawton@naa.org
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Just a quick congratulations to the Detroit Free Press and the San Jose Mercury News staffers who won News & Documentary Awards (part of the Emmy Awards). We love to see our newspapers embrace online video and get positive national recognition for their efforts.
The Free Press won two awards for videos on the newspaper’s Web site. "40 Years of Respect" was about the 40th anniversary of the song "Respect," by Aretha Franklin, and "Pit Bulls: Companions or Killers?" looked at the benefits and drawbacks to owning a pit bull.
The San Jose Mercury News won an award for “Uprooted,” a story about mobile home residents in Sunnyvale, Calif., who were displaced.
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The Drudge Report kept its No. 1 spot in August in monthly sessions per user among Nielsen Online’s Top 30 Current Events & Global News Destinations, slipping again from 20.5 sessions per user in July to 19.4. Daily Kos jumped up several spots to No. 2 with 11.2 sessions per user. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel moved into the top 10 in August, with 6.1 sessions per user, up a full session per user from July. Thirteen newspaper Web sites are now on the top 30 list from Nielsen, including newcomers Politico and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. MediaNews Group returned to the list after a brief absence. Other notable newspaper moves this month:
- Cox Newspapers moved from 30th place to 20th place, increasing their sessions per person from 3.6 to 4.2.
- Hearst Newspapers moved from 19th place to 12th place, increasing their sessions per person from 4.3 to 4.9.
- The Star Tribune and Media General Newspapers dropped a few places, and The Buffalo (N.Y.) News and the Salt Lake Deseret Morning News both exited the list.
Nielsen Online provides these numbers to the Newspaper Association of America on a monthly basis, showing traffic and sessions per person* to the top 30 sites in the “News” category based on July 2008 numbers. It takes into account U.S. home and work Internet usage, and it shows both unique visitors to each brand or channel and sessions per person.* Note on the following numbers: Auto-refresh features on Web sites (i.e. when a Web site page reloads automatically) does not increase the number of sessions. For more information about the metrics, go to www.netratings.com.
^ Indicates Home and Work audience duplication projections did not meet minimum sample size standards. Combined home and work audience estimates for these sites may exhibit increased variability month-to-month as a result.
See this Excel file for all of this month's statistics from Nielsen Online. See the blog entry on the July top 30 list here.
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In just about every edition of the Online Publishing Update, I’ve been including interesting research nuggets about the online audience that might be useful for online ad sales reps to keep in their arsenal. Here’s a roundup of the most interesting ones from the past few months:
Research for Sales Reps
Media multitasking is less common than you think: Although young people are more likely than older adults to media multitask, less than half the people read the newspaper or surf the Web simultaneously do other things. This research shows that Web site visitors and newspaper print readers are engaged with the product. According to Mediamark Research & Intelligence, Among all adults, 55 percent of those who read a print newspaper at home do so "without involvement of other media." When surfing the Web at home, 53.8 percent of adults do not media multitask. (More information from MediaWeek)
Newspaper site visitors are more likely to act on ads than other local site users:Consumers generally trust local advertising on newspaper, magazine and TV Web sites, according to a new survey from the Online Publishers Association. More than 40 percent of local online media users said they are likely to take action after seeing a local ad on one of those sites. “Newspaper [Web sites] rank first with 46 percent of consumers taking action – including making a purchase, going to a store, conducting research – after viewing a local ad,” according to the Online Publishers Association. (More information from OPA)
Ads on branded content sites more effective than ads on portal sites: According to the Online Publishers Association, “major content sites, by dint of the familiarity and distinct identity they have with users, can improve brand favorability and purchase intent more than other sites,” PaidContent.org reported. OPA President Pam Horan said, “It's an absolute fact with online advertising: environment matters. In nearly every category measured, ad effectiveness scores on branded content sites were numerically higher than on the Web in general, on portals or on ad networks. Whether it's the trust they engender or the audiences they attract, branded content sites deliver better advertising results.” (More information from the Online Publishers Association)
Web coupon usage is increasing: Although the Sunday newspaper still reigns supreme for grocery coupons (27 percent of Americans clip grocery coupons each week), Internet coupons are quickly gaining popularity. Internet Retailer reported 11 percent of consumers got coupons from the Web last year, up from 8 percent in 2006, according to data from Scarborough Research. comScore reported visits to coupon sites increased 21 percent in the past year. (More information from Internet Retailer)
“Integrators” and “net-newsers” rely on newspaper Web sites: Although newspaper print readership is generally down, the number of people going online for news at least a few times each week is still increasingly. The majority of Americans say they “check in” on the news from time to time during the day – which means they are repeat newspaper Web site visitors. There are four segments in today’s news audience: integrators, net-newsers, traditionalists and disengaged.
Integrators are 23 percent of respondents to a Pew survey this summer. Integrators “who get the news from both traditional sources and the Internet, are a more engaged, sophisticated and demographically sought-after audience segment than those who mostly rely on traditional news sources.” Integrators spend the most time with news on a typical day of the four segments.
Net-newsers are 13 percent of respondents with a median age 35 (youngest segment). “Net-newsers not only rely primarily on the internet for news, they are leading the way in using new web features and other technologies.” (More information from Pew)
High gas prices are encouraging people to shop online: The high cost of gas is encouraging more people to shop online. At many retailers where brick-and-mortar store sales are slow, online sales are up. (More information from The New York Times)
The Web is more interesting to pre-teens than TV: The Internet is winning out over television for children ages 10 to 14, according to a study recently released by DoubleClick Performics. “The study found that 83 percent of Internet users in that age bracket spent an hour or more online a day, but only 68 percent devoted that much time to television,” according to The New York Times. “The study found that the children often did research online before making a purchase -- or bugging their parents to make one.” (More information from The New York Times)
Also, this is a great blog entry from the Online Journalism Blog’s Paul Bradshaw. The full blog entry has a lot more information and details you can use, and the comments on the blog entry have additional advice. This isn’t research-based, but it’s interesting and useful anyway:
10 Ways Ad Sales People Can Save Newspapers
The Online Journalism Blog published some frank advice for newspaper ad sales people this week. The blog's “10 Ways Ad Sales People Can Save Newspapers” entry focused on digital media and included the following (see the blog for details on all 10 items):
1. Stop treating web ads as second class.
2. Stop selling adverts on static pages.
3. Sell advertising against search terms.
4. Give ad sales people access to the Internet.
5. Enable the long tail of small businesses to advertise without you doing it for them.
6. Think beyond the banner: get creative about online advertising.
7. Think about vouchers.
8. Sell advertising aimed at the non-local market.
9. Sell video ads as well as the production of video content.
10. Work in networks.
Bonus: Don't take digital growth for granted.
NAA’s Moving to Mobile
"Moving to Mobile" is a growth and development guide from the Newspaper Association of America that covers the many aspects of mobile for newspapers. Articles include the following and more:
- Mobile Advertising: The Next Big Thing Hasn't Arrived (But It's On Its Way)
- SMS Programs: Potential in 160 Characters or Less
- How Newspapers Can Cell Themselves to Youth
Note: We have a Webinar on mobile advertising coming up Sept. 30. Click here to register and get more information!
NAA’s Zooming In on Online Video
While still a small percentage of total and local online advertising, online video represents an enormous opportunity for newspapers to grow revenue and audience. “Zooming In on Online Video: A Development & Growth Guide for Newspaper Web Sites” is intended to help newspapers of any size develop profitable video applications.
NAA’s Local Search Opportunities for Newspapers (Plus Webinar on Monday!)
Newspapers are finding new and varied ways of tapping into the search space. Some are blending news and targeted advertising content with more sophisticated search tools. Learn more about newspaper's efforts at local search with case studies from Boston.com, Ottoway Newspapers, GateHouse Media and others.
And don’t forget about this:
 Local Search: Strategies for Audience and Revenue Growth Webinar
After much experimentation, newspapers are finding ways to serve smaller advertisers online, some through enhanced local search capabilities, some through SEO services and others through interactive business directories. This Webinar will explore two successful models for capturing non-traditional advertisers, one from a small-market newspaper and one from a larger market organization.
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Webinar coming Monday!
At a jam-packed session at the Online News Association Conference this weekend, the moderator of a panel asked a series of questions about the audience's usage of online ads. Here's what happened:
Moderator: Who has intentionally clicked on a display ad online in the past month?
Audience: ... A few hands go up.
Moderator: Who has responded to an e-mail ad or marketing message in the past month?
Audience: ... About 10 hands go up.
Moderator: Who has gone directly to an online retailer's site in the past month?
Audience: ... A few more hands go up.
Moderator: Who has searched for a product or service online in the past month?
Audience: ... Just about everyone raised their hand.
This just illustrates the obvious: We're all searching for "stuff". Restaurants, books, mechanics, new windows -- the list could go on forever.
In any given local market, no media outlet has more information about businesses, sales, and local products than the newspaper. Going forward, one of the smartest things a newspaper can do is harness currently available digital media technology and the newspaper's knowledge base to get the attention of people who are going online to search for stuff.
With that in mind, we present this:
Local Search: Strategies for Audience and Revenue Growth
Monday, September 22 at 2 p.m. ET (Rescheduled from August)
After much experimentation, newspapers are finding ways to serve smaller advertisers online, some through enhanced local search capabilities, some through SEO services and others through interactive business directories. This Webinar will explore two successful models for capturing non-traditional advertisers, one from a small-market newspaper and one from a larger market organization. For background on local search and directory strategies, download NAA's new report Local Search: Strategies for Audience and Revenue Growth.
Speakers:
• Sarah Wilhelm, Vice President of Sales & Business Development, Mediaphormedia,( the software division of The World Company in Lawrence, Kan.)
• Mark Robertson, Search Evangelist, Freedom Interactive
Register here!
For more information on local search, check out NAA's recently released report"Local Search: Strategies for Audience and Revenue Growth" at www.naa.org/localsearch.
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According to ACAP Program
Director Mark Bide, copyright laws in place now worldwide have largely
worked and are still effective. But in the digital age, we largely lack
the necessary tools to make copyright laws really work on the
Web. In the United States, our main copyright enforcement tool is
litigation, which is – let’s face it – really expensive and time
consuming. (Or a headache for all involved; reference the AP vs. Drudge Retort fiasco from earlier this year.) ACAP is essentially a few
lines of code on Web pages. The idea behind ACAP is that publishers of
all types of media would be able to pre-emptively deal with copyright
issues by telling search engines what (and when) to crawl content.
Frankly, very few people
read the “terms & conditions” on Web sites, anyway. ACAP, Bide
said, will ultimately make all publishers more confident about putting
their content online, and it will facilitate new business models while
preserving copyrights. “This is an Internet-scale solution to an
Internet-scale problem,” Bide said. ACAP is extensible, flexible and
able to scale to both current and future online publishing business
models.
ACAP tries to facilitate copyright violation prevention as opposed
to post-violation enforcement. It goes far beyond robots.txt, but “is
not anti-search engine or anti-search,” Bide said. The permissions ACAP
would include directions to search engines on crawling, following,
indexing, preserving, presenting and other – plus subsets of all those
"usage purposes."
ACAP is an initiative of the
World Association of Newspapers, the International Publishers
Association and the European Publishers Council. Although ACAP
originated in Europe, current ACAP members include The Associated
Press, the American Publishers Association, Reuters and others in the
United States.
Two things to note here:
None of the “Big Three” search engines – Microsoft Live Search, Yahoo
and Google – has agreed to implement ACAP for a wide range of reasons.
Also, NAA is a supporter of ACAP.
The next steps for the
organizations behind ACAP are to expand it, actively encourage
publishers to implement ACAP on their Web sites (implementing it will
not affect how search engines crawl your sites yet).
Could ACAP, if implemented by more major U.S. publishers and honored by the “Big Three” search engines, have prevented the Tribune-Google-Bloomberg controversy
from this past weekend? Maybe. It is also designed to perhaps solve the
issues that may come up when an online publisher takes down an article
but it continues to appear in search engines thanks to caching, which
can be a liability issue. But, whether it really takes hold with
publishers and major search engines remains to be seen.
Either way, ACAP is still
quite controversial. Several digital media types are, perhaps
rightfully, concerned that ACAP could really decrease traffic to Web
sites from search engines. (ACAP contests this has not happened in
European test markets, but since the Big Three are not participating,
who’s really to say?)
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Yesterday, I attended “Like Minds,” a pre- Online News Association Conference workshop that focused on convergence in newspaper newsrooms (at least, my section of the workshop did).
The ideas-sharing session of the workshop included these ideas for getting over some of the bumps in converging your newspaper’s newsroom.
Interns/Rotations: Education Week has implemented two-month “rotations,” where each newsroom staffer is pulled off their beat and immersed in the publication’s Web operations. Learning how the Web site works first hand is helping reporters think about the Web before start reporting their stories. The Tacoma News Tribune is letting reporters apply for mini-internships with the Web department where the reporter completes a Web-based project in addition to learning the ropes.
Volunteers: Don’t underestimate the power of the first few people to try something new. Many newspapers have reported to NAA that when a few newsroom staffers try something new and tell their co-workers how fun it was, those co-workers are much more likely to want to give that new thing a shot.
The Metrics Trick: Show reporters their Web traffic numbers. The Commercial Appeal tells everyone how many page views the top stories online received, and sometimes reporters get rewards for having the highest number of page views. For many newspapers, the Web page views can be as high as or higher than the newspaper’s circulation, and giving print reporters those numbers can help them understand the importance of the Web.
Passions: Some newspapers have been taking another look at each reporters passions and strengths. If a reporter loves telling stories, the newspaper can give them digital media tools to do their job better, such as encouraging video. If a reporter loves breaking news, the newspaper can make them a mojo (mobile journalist) or put them on the breaking news desk. Investigative reporters may be especially interested in playing with databases.
Movement: One newspaper from Vancouver, B.C., said it has brought its senior editors out of their offices and moved them into the newsroom. In addition, all those senior editors sit within feet of each other, creating an environment friendly to spur-of-the-moment collaboration and multimedia thinking. Reporters now bring their ideas to a group of people instead of to just their individual boss, which ultimately results in stronger stories.
I’ll blog more about the conference this weekend!
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 Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I’ll be at the Online News Association Conference here in Washington. I will attend a few sessions on Saturday for Presstime magazine (see below), but my entire day on Friday is open for me to go to whatever sessions you think I should attend.
Here are your choices. Please e-mail me directly at beth.lawton@naa.org or post a comment below to let me know what you would like me to report back on. More information about all Friday sessions is here.
Friday morning:
A. Las Vegas Sun Site Redesign or
B. ACAP: Should Publishers Adopt a New Standard?
Friday afternoon 1
A. MSNBC.com Bridge Tracker, or
B. The Next New Metrics, or
C. Merging Newsrooms, Managing Drama
Friday afternoon 2:
A. The New York Times Election Guide
B. Optimize and Monetize
C. Content Distribution in Emerging Markets
D. Using the Web to Generate Story Ideas
Friday afternoon 3:
A. National Geographic Web Design
B. Hello, Semantic Web!
C. Beyond Green
D. Mobilize Your Audience!
Saturday, I’m definitely attending “10 Tech Trends You’ve Never Heard Of,” “Going Mobile” and the Superpanel. Also, I’ll attend the keynote speech and general session that morning. (More information about the Saturday sessions is here.)
Thursday, I’ll be attending “Like Minds,” an afternoon workshop and idea-sharing session tailored for people who work in newspapers, magazines, broadcast or standalone Web sites. (I’ll be in the newspapers section.)
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“Conservatives say newspapers are hurting because readers are fed up with how liberal they are. Liberals say newspapers are hurting because they've become shills for conservatives and tools of corporations. … Here's what I say: Newspapers are hurting because the people who should be relying on them don't, and because those who do rely on them have decided they ought to be able to do so for free.”
The quote above came from a speech The Isthmus Editor Bill Leuders gave to the Madison, Wis. Rotary Club. The speech was titled “Why Newspapers Matter.”
With that title, I imagine right now some readers are thinking, “Yeah, yeah, we know newspapers matter.”
But Leuders makes some really good points that reporters and editors in the midst of buyouts, layoffs or other cutbacks should hear. Chief among them: Newspapers matter a lot.
First, some background: Leuders still describes himself as a reporter – more specifically as a “newspaper reporter” – despite his “editor” title. And the Isthmus, an alternative news weekly in Madison, has not been spared from staff cuts and the other painful realities of the newspaper industry.
The oft-discussed decline of the newspaper industry is not the Internet’s fault, Leuders said, and the effect of the Web on traditional media is not what concerns him. What concerns him is that newspapers are seriously undervalued by those who should (or do, but don’t realize it) depend on the vital work of newspaper reporters – regular people who have an interest in keeping up on the world around them, from their kid’s school system to the national and international stages. Toward the end of his speech, Leuders said he’s quite discouraged by those who seem “cheerfully ignorant.”
“In fact, newspapers are the source of nearly all of the reporting being done on those three-minute news updates played on local radio stations. Newspapers are the source of nearly all of the commentaries posted by bloggers; they almost never do the hard work of picking up a phone and nailing down a story. They pick up a newspaper,” Leuders said. (Personal note: I witnessed this while interning at a TV station in an earlier life.)
He continued, “My concern is that newspapers seem to be losing traction at precisely the time when they should be gaining it. I worry that people are not replacing daily newspaper consumption with other quality information.”
Leuders then gave – and solidly refuted – five common reasons why people don’t seem to value newspapers anymore (he focuses on newspapers in the Madison area for No. 5). Here is the Cliff’s Notes version:
- Reason: “I don’t have time.” Leuders: “That’s ridiculous. Of course you have time. You just spend the time you have doing other things.”
- Reason: “It’s just too depressing.” Leuders: “There are all kinds of stories in the paper -- good news and bad, stories about people and trends and ideas and business and technology and sports.”
- Reason: “It’s all fluff.” Leuders: “There are all kinds of stories in each and every issue. If you don’t like the softer stuff, don’t read it. And for Pete’s sake, make up your mind: Do you not read papers because there’s too much bad news, or not enough?”
- Reason: “You can’t trust anything you read in the paper.” Leuders: “You can trust almost everything you read in the newspaper. You know why? Because newspaper reporters work very hard to be accurate, and they get an amazing number of things right. Not just facts, names and figures, but nuance and context. We’re the only profession I know of that runs corrections when it makes mistakes.”
- Reason: “Isthmus is the only good read in town.” Leuders: “The truth is that Madison has an unusually large number of talented reporters, on staff and freelance, because it’s considered a good place to live. There are dozens of applicants for every local journalism job. If you can make it here, you might not be able to make it anywhere. But you probably don’t suck. And neither does my competition.”
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 We’ve added to our Zooming In on Online Video series this week with a short case study on the Honolulu Advertiser. Hawaii, as many people know, is a beautiful place and the newspaper had an understandable desire to cover the news with video as much as with words and pictures.
Gannett’s corporate training (see outline here) really helped the newspaper get going on video last year. The newspaper did well marketing its Web site as a video destination.
Unfortunately, an ongoing labor dispute has put all of that on hold – a problem any newspaper with a union should learn from and work to fix.
Learn more in the latest addition to NAA’s Zooming In on Online Video: A Development & Growth Guide for Newspaper Web Sites.
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Here's just some of what's included in this month’s issue of PRESSTIME:
New Tools for a New Job
As the Internet continues to evolve, so have the ways newspapers spread content on the Web. In the past, articles, videos, photos and blogs were bound to the newspaper’s main Web site. That is no longer the case, and many newspapers are using new digital tools that help get content out to people. Social networking software, open APIs, widgets and more are included in this new digital media toolkit by LaShell Stratton.
Mind the Gap
Journalism schools still need to instill the basics of reporting and writing and an understanding of ethics and legal issues—but at the same time teach multimedia and other skills that will help students land their first jobs. They need to coach students on new methods of reporting even as faculties and curricula are slow to change, and professors may not have used these skills in their careers as working journalists. And they need to do this at a time when the industry is confused about its own future and not necessarily able to offer much guidance. This month’s cover story by Mary Lynn Jones looks at the gap between the classroom and the newsroom, and explores how journalism schools are retooling to graduate students who are ready to enter a rapidly evolving professional media world.
Chairman’s View: Telling Our Story
“News companies nowadays have become hybrids: integrated multimedia operations that are increasingly at ease operating across many platforms in a continuous, 24/7 news cycle,” wrote writes NAA Chairman Gary B. Pruitt in his column this month. “Only a decade ago, many of us delivered only a once-a-day, print product; today’s effort includes instant e-mail news alerts, video stories, specialty publications, databases of public information and sophisticated computer graphic presentations. Today’s news company is as at home on iPhones as on newsracks. Perhaps the most remarkable (and least recognized) fact is this: These integrated news operations command a growing audience.”
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At least a few newspapers made adjustments to their print runs for Hurricane Gustav, but the real adjustments were online.
Dan Shea, managing editor/news, told Editor & Publisher that 120 newspaper staffers were at the newspaper’s offices Sunday evening, and more than half stayed long past the (earlier-than-normal) print deadline to blog and cover the story for the Web. The newspaper’s Web site has free PDF versions of the print edition online. The Times-Picayune reported record traffic to the newspaper’s Web site (3 million page views Sunday).
And, taking lessons from Katrina, the newspaper created myriad easy ways to readers to contribute and help each other with information, practical advice and updates through the site NOLA.com. The site also hosted PDF versions of the daily newspaper and created a hurricane desktop application for quick updates. And, the newspaper purchased more generators after Katrina to keep the main office open for Web publishing – an investment that paid off, since the newspaper’s building has been without power since early Monday.
Clearly, the newspaper recognized the importance of the Web’s role in getting information out to people and prepared accordingly before Hurricane Gustav was even a tropical depression. Their efforts are worth checking out today and provide lessons for all newspapers.
On the print side, The Times-Picayune published Sunday’s paper on Saturday morning for distribution Saturday afternoon as many residents were leaving town ahead of the hurricane. The newspaper held Monday’s edition in a warehouse until its delivery people returned, Editor & Publisher reported.
Non-newspaper efforts included NPR’s launch of an unbranded Gustav Information Center on the social networking platform Ning. Learn more about it here. And CNN’s Victor Hernandez talked to Poynter about how newer technologies are making disaster coverage faster and more accurate (read it here).
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