Embracing a Web World

By Amy Eagleburger
August 21, 2008 10:54 AM

It's been an interesting time to start a journalism career. Members of the old guard and young reporters like myself watch with bewilderment as good writers are offered buyouts and papers shrink smaller and smaller to save money on printing costs. I joked to a professor that it felt like the first round of the plague.

Being trained to write for newspapers and magazines, I found myself looking down upon bloggers. They had committed a cardinal sin: being good at something without formal training. At my student newspaper, being put online was justified as "a good thing, really" but still everyone felt insulted.

Out in the real world, I felt, at first, like a train conductor at the advent of the airplane age -- the future is in the cockpit but I was trained to stay on the rails. My moping, thankfully, didn’t last long.

I quickly had an awakening, realizing that online media was not the end of the world. I started reading blogs and blogging myself. I created an online portfolio and learned to use Final Cut Pro. Now I'm a new media evangelist.

With the Internet we have the ability to deliver unlimited amounts of information to our readers. It's any writer's dream to expand their reach but the Internet also has brought hardship as newspapers were slow to adapt.

Eight years into the 21st century we're finally seeing quality newspaper Web sites, but still, they are few and far between. One of the biggest bandwagons newspapers jumped on was beefing up stories with multimedia packages and videos. The New York Times already has established itself as a leader, incorporating meaningful multimedia presentations into business coverage. Their most recent offering, "The Debt Trap," is an interactive presentation on how Americans fell into debt. It enhances the print story. Even rudimentary skills with Photoshop and a video camera can make for a professional addition to a story package. But don't just cobble something together for multimedia's sake. Make sure the story warrants supplementary material, and don't insult readers with shoddy work.

Blogs are also on the radar now, but they continue to be underutilized. One of the many complaints from journalists is that they don't have time to blog and write stories. So why aren't newspapers hiring more professional bloggers? MacRumors.com is a blog Dr. Arnold Kim started as a hobby. It was so successful that he gave up his medical career to blog full time. He's not just a guy in his pajamas but someone with a knack for news gathering. Why did that blog not start at a newspaper? I'll admit that when I wanted to read about the new iPhone, I went to Kim’s blog before other publications.

When newspapers do feature blogs, they tend to group several beats together in one presentation. Why not develop several blogs, each with a specific topic to help better engage readers? When labeled simply as a business blog, no one really knows what to expect. It might include information about Apple that techies would love but it might also talk about Honeywell's latest SEC filing. I'd love to see every writer in the newsroom pick one area they are passionate about and start a blog. The Washington Post's full-time blogger Sharon McLoone writes about small business issues. She takes time on her posts and knows her stuff. That blog isn't table scrap content but the main course.

The Wall Street Journal’s “Real Time Economics” blog is another solid example. Written by Journal reporters, it comments on economic trends and expands the meaning behind  numbers or a Federal Reserve speech. It attracts hundreds of comments a day, from economists and businessmen and creates a space for a vibrant conversation about economics. The paper essentially took the hobbies of great writers like Greg Ip, Paul Izzo and Sudeep Reedy and put them to good use. These guys liked economics, a lot, and the Journal tapped into that effectively.

William Lobdell, a former veteran reporter at The Los Angeles Times, recently published reasons why he believes his former paper is struggling. One of his suggestions for improvement was to have a series of subject-specific Web sites, instead of one site for the paper. He suggested sites for each college and professional sports team in the area, one dedicated to the school district and one for city hall. I think it’s an excellent idea, and I’m eager to see newspapers look into spin-off sites. The Journal did this with their tech site, AllThingsDigital.com.  Even with substantial, effective content, the challenge is often still how to make online efforts profitable.

Offering news online for free so quickly might have been a big mistake, one that would be hard undo. The audience expects things for free now. But what about charging for premium content, like ESPN.com , or requiring subscriptions for niche sites. The good thing is that subject specific sites can provide a better value proposition to advertisers. They know that a certain demographic and interest group visits each site so they are better able to tailor their messages.

Whatever the answer, I'm excited to be a part of shaping the way we get our news in the decades to come. I'm going to treasure the memories of classic print journalism and I'll always contend that the Journal’s A-heds had the best feature writing. But for my career, I have to deliver news in ways that will reach people, not just in ways that I think they should be reached.

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