Web Views: The Writer's Strike

By Anita Malik
February 20, 2008 06:48 PM

I’m a journalist, a business woman, a techie and admittedly a couch potato all rolled into one, so the tale of the Hollywood writer’s strike was on my radar. Here, I thought, was the perfect story: A blend of both business and consumer interests, a story ripe with multimedia opportunities.

When the strike ended on February 12, the story landed on business pages across the country. Web coverage of the agreement promised a double hit of page views. Not only was this a capstone event, but it was a two-for-one story, of interest to both business readers and entertainment aficionados. Still, online presentations of the strike’s ending were somewhat lacking, and worse yet, I began to feel the symptoms of scroll-bar syndrome.

While larger papers such as the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times did deliver thorough Web packages, complete with galleries and graphs, on the strike’s ongoing events, elements toward the end seemed less imaginative. Business stories on how various TV shows would be affected amounted to nothing more than long listings of programs. Timelines were text-only and presented vertically down the page.

The basic principal of delivering content online is that we want our readers to read it, view it or listen it, a cursory glance isn’t enough. We need Web stats to prove that users are spending sufficient time on pages they click to in order to prove that our content matters. But when we force readers to scroll too much, particularly for anything other than a traditional text story, scroll-bar syndrome sets in. Readers then do the unthinkable, they click away from the page much too quickly.

Jakob Nielsen, author of a slew of Web design books and called the “guru of Web page usability” by The New York Times, says it is essential to display all important information above the fold. He writes: “Users often decide whether to stay or leave based on what they can see without scrolling.”

Of course, an engaging read is of foremost importance, but for lists, data, dates, anything outside the realm of a traditional story, more creativity is necessary:

• Timelines could have been animated or flash-based, utilizing the imagery of the months and the medium.


• For show listings, why not overlay up-to-date information on top of program stills for at least the top 10 or the top 20 shows?


• If technical resources are tight, as they often are, what about thinking horizontally instead of vertically. Can column widths be altered?

Then there’s the economic impact angle.

With Wednesday’s release of a report by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp, this part of the story is far from over. This most recent report says the strike cost Los Angeles $2.5 billion. Break down the report, look at the numbers and present the information to readers graphically.

If Southern Californians don’t make up the bulk of your audience, as the strike was ongoing did you look at ways to bring the story home? What was the local impact, if any? Did local restaurants see increased traffic as people looked for replacements for their favorite shows? Perhaps a video story would have been a way to capture the local angle.

Some of this was done in different corners of the country, but it wasn’t enough. And my critique of strike-ending coverage is not to say the coverage was faulty. The writer’s strike, however, serves as an example of my broader message: There is always room for improvement in our Web presentations.

There are always new ways to employ the technology at hand to craft a stronger Web presence where content is still king, but scrolling is kept to safe toxicity levels and the online platform is fully utilized. These are the lessons I hope to share in this column going forward, and I hope you’ll join me in discussions on audio, video, the online mindset and perhaps the worst no-no of all: horizontal scrolling.

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Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism