In many ways, the Internet was both a blessing
and a curse for the newspaper industry.
Some executives would call it a curse for the way
it often hurriedly made online content available for free. If a newspaper didn’t
have a Web site, it was old-fashioned and a member of the “last generation”
rather than the next.
It was also a blessing in many ways. No longer
chained to the 24-hour cycle, newspapers were finally free to compete with radio
and television, the prospect of which excited many journalists and news
photographers as well.
The idea of a community site caught on for many
newspapers. Reading a newspaper is a passive experience, with information
flowing only one way. The Internet shatters that boundary, and lets readers
literally feed back their opinions, ideas and experiences. This can create a
stronger sense of ownership and relevance in the community.
The newspaper typically has a well-established
name in the community, and can play on that strength to make a name for itself
when initiating a community-based site.
The Fresno (Calif.) Bee (daily, 160,000; Sunday,
190,000) is a McClatchy Co. daily that has a main newspaper site, fresnobee.com,
and a second, more community-oriented site at centralvalley.com.
“We need to be recognized as the source for all
the information on things to do in our communities,” said Ken Riddick,
director of interactive media for the Bee for the last three and a half years.
He also cautions that all aspects of sites —
community or not — are businesses, and that means the necessity for
profitability and long-term viability. The Bee sites contain different forms of
interactivity and are powered by Nando Media’s modular publishing system.
“We have many online news forums, some
specific-area forums and occasionally live news-related forums. With the
exception of the live forums, registered users are allowed to post comments
directly to the site. Since the live forums are monitored, they are pretty much
completely managed by content staff.”
Riddick said these unique features have allowed
the paper to do things that wouldn’t be possible in print.
“For example, after there was a deadly migrant
farm labor van accident on a local highway, we had a state assemblyman and
officers from the California Highway Patrol here to participate in a live forum
on pending legislation, transportation safety issues and the like.
“Because our readership has a large Latino
component and because many of the people affected by this were Hispanic, we
conducted the forum simultaneously in Spanish and English. Newsprint costs alone
would have prohibited that kind of public service in the past. And they got the
information straight from the horse’s mouth.”
On the negative side, Riddick said that badly
behaved users and those who have apparently just discovered profanity can be
problem areas. But overall, he finds that the tenor of the online discussions
has been intelligent and vigorous.
Gotrn.com serves the Wichita Falls and Texoma
region of North Texas. It was built by the Times Record (daily, 35,000; Sunday,
40,000) to serve as an online extension of the paper’s community print
products. Created in May 2001, it has gone through one major revision and is
powered by Dynaportal technology from BiznizWeb Inc.
“This is really our second version of Gotrn.com,
and we got plenty of feedback from users on both versions,” said Amy Dowdy,
the new media art and design director at the Times Record.
“It mainly differs from its print companion in
that it’s searchable, it’s always there, and it’s frequently updated. One
of the biggest benefits of this site is that non-profits can become members and
provide the community calendar with all their upcoming events and fundraising
activities. We have had a great response from the community and found that this
is a growing and valuable resource.”
Dowdy feels that this self-submission capability
is critical in order for the community to develop a sense of ownership of the
site.
“Since the site thrives on membership, we give
members the opportunity to build personal Web pages, to participate in forums,
and receive newsletters from organizations they select. Interactivity is very
important, so we have a weekly poll and occasionally online contests and trivia.”
Although Gotrn.com doesn’t specifically monitor
the site, as their user agreement states clearly, the staff does periodically
check for duplicates of calendar listings, and there is a review of business
directory listings, since that service is paid unless the submission comes from
a non-profit. If complaints are received about online content, they are dealt
with on a case-by-case basis, Dowdy said.
She has advice for anyone thinking of tackling
the launch of a community-oriented Web site.
“I think the best advice I could give to anyone
trying to create a community site like we have done, would be to have all the
internal systems ironed out and have other department managers fully understand
what information is being offered online and how it can get there, before you go
live.
“The hardest part of this whole process has
been communicating the vision of what a true community portal can offer. By no
means is Gotrn.com complete. There are modules and services that we are not
offering to the public yet because the organization has not yet caught up to the
vision,” Dowdy said.
Another Texas newspaper, the Victoria Advocate,
has a vibrant community site. Founded in 1846, the Advocate (daily, 39,000;
Sunday 40,500) is the state’s second-oldest newspaper and is independent and
family-owned. Stephen McHaney, director of new media, has been with the paper
since 1997.
“We look at the community section of the site
as an electronic extension of the traditional bulletin board,” said McHaney.
“It’s intended to be the online center for community events in Victoria and
the surrounding area. It’s not really complete yet, but then again it may
never be complete because that section of the paper and the Web site will adapt
to serve the community in whichever way is best.”
The Advocate uses a mix of software on their
site, like many papers, having added systems and modules to the sites.
“We are using Afinisys for our community
section, although one could say we are also using Nando Media depending on where
you draw the line between “community” and the rest of the site,” commented
McHaney.
“The Affinisys software is not fully developed,
and it’s not up to my standards for ease of use and functionality. The
portions of the site that are handled by Nando work extremely well.”
He feels that although community sites are
ultimately worth it for a newspaper to develop, they take a lot of time to
maintain.
“It’s always great to introduce the community
section to a new group and hear them get excited about putting their information
online,” said McHaney. “The negatives are dealing with vendors that go out
of business, and promise more than they can deliver.”
Moving east, MaineToday.com brings together a
number of newspapers owned by Blethen Maine newspapers and other media. Content
comes from the Portland Press-Herald, Maine Sunday Telegram, Kennebec Journal,
Morning Sentinel and television station News 8 WMTW. The Blethen family also
owns the Seattle Times.
“We actually just launched what we call our
bulletin board section,” said Monica Wright, marketing and production manager
for MaineToday.com. This concept works a bit differently from the traditional
idea of a community section, she said.
“Instead of having a dedicated community
section in our navigation, what we’re trying to do is bring in a community
element to all of our sections, such as high school sports or the outdoor
section, for example, if there are biking or kayaking groups.”
The software to allow these kinds of postings was
developed in-house by the MaineToday.com staff. Previously, community functions
were handled by software from the company Koz, before Koz went out of business,
necessitating the change.
“The community really stepped up to being part
of MaineToday,” Wright said. “We do a lot of presentations, especially to
nonprofit groups, on how to get into the media and how to be associated with us.”
Wright has a name for this type of unique product
that is not restricted to print.
“We call it bionic content,” she said,
laughing. “Because it’s electronic, but there’s this human element to it.
Maine is a really homegrown state, and they (readers) like to see what’s going
on in all the nooks and crannies of all these communities. Because the state is
pretty big, it’s hard to find somewhere to get all of this information from
these smaller organizations.” Clearly, a community site can take many forms,
everything from the traditional calendar of events for communities in a paper’s
circulation area, to more advanced solutions whereby non-profits and clubs can
post meeting schedules and run message boards.
The Internet has allowed newspapers to move
beyond their traditional one-way roles as information providers, and into the
role of being an information clearinghouse. Perhaps the idea of newspapers being
the ultimate Internet portals isn’t dead after all.
