Newspapers and Their Web Sites
September 10, 2018
I have no recollection of who told me this bit of folklore, but I thought of it when I read “Why Are Newspaper Websites So Horrible?”
Take a beaver from its habitat. Maybe a stream in the woods in northern Wisconsin. Put the beaver in the Chrysler Building’s old observation room with some wooden furniture. Come back in about four hours. What will the beaver do? Answer: Try to build a dam. Moral: Beavers do what beavers to regardless of the location.
Take a print newspaper with the baggage that entails. Put it in a digital environment which has been around since the New York Times put content on the LexisNexis news service AFTER it failed with its own online service in the 1970s. Think the NYT is a success? Yeah, but what if the NYT management had supported Jeff Pemberton and his team? Yeah, success might look different. Ah, what if?
The write up focuses on the implementation of the “beavers do what beavers do” behavior.
That’s lighting the garden when I need light underneath my car when I am changing its oil.
Newspapers do ads. An enlightened and wealthy owner like Barry Bingham could generate a newspaper and some electronic products of quality. But once the Bingham properties when to new owners, understand the beaver thing kicks in.
The problem is how traditional journalism, reporting the news, financing the operation, and creating the gatekeeper role with some influence.
The crazy Web sites of newspapers illustrates that result of the management of these interesting business properties. User experience? Sure.
Beavers do what beavers do.
Stephen E Arnold, September 10, 2018
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