David Lazarus has a new, nonsensical column in the Los Angeles Times about how not charging for content will “cost journalism dearly.”

I don’t pretend to understand all the minutiae of the writers strike, but I do know this much: Hollywood scribes want to be compensated fairly when their work is accessed on the Internet, which is increasingly becoming a venue to watch movies and TV shows.

So why should newspapers be any different?

This is why glib newspaper columnists, editors, reporters, etc should not talk about the Web or business or anything they have no idea about (unless of course they do know about the Web and technology, unlike Lazarus). Clearly, no one has ever made money without directly charging someone for a service. It’s as if television and radio never existed.

The writer’s strike that Lazarus cites in his lede comes from one industry that is supported by advertisers. Network television is free, and networks have begun putting their shows online for free as well (supported by ads). The strike isn’t over getting paid for their work, rather it is over getting paid what writer’s believe is an appropriate amount for their work on the Internet and on DVD.

Big difference. Television studios make plenty of money. The reason writers are striking is that they want a bigger cut of that huge pool of money.

Newspapers on the other hand aren’t doing so hot. But that’s neither here nor there. Ad-supported content has been around for a long time, and that’s how you succeed on the Web.

But Lazarus is yet another ink-stained wretch who just doesn’t get it. He believes that if newspapers don’t charge for their content, they will never be able to make money.

His logic falters when he forgets that newspapers largely charge for print copies of their papers because of printing and distribution costs, not to be a main revenue stream (the Web doesn’t have these huge costs). Classified advertising was always the sacred cow of newspapers, and they gave that revenue stream away to Craigslist (I said it again!) when publishers refused to make a logical and user friendly online classified advertising system.

Time’s business and economics columnist Justin Fox says that news was pretty much free before the Internet came along:

News was already pretty close to free long before the Internet came along. It was free on TV, free on the radio, and effectively free in newspapers when you consider all the valuable stuff that came packaged with it for 25 or 50 cents, from comics to crosswords to classifieds to supermarket ads.

Not to mention how much more exponentially expensive it is to print and distribute a paper than it is to host a Web site. The problem facing newspapers is simple: the people working for newspapers by in large don’t get the Web. So, how could they possibly make money off the Web? Take Lazarus for example:

Everyone says the Net represents the future of journalism, and that’s probably true. But at this point, no one knows how to make much money at it.

Plenty of people know how to make money off the Web. Instead of just looking at what newspapers are doing to make money off the Web, we should be looking at what Web companies do to make money off the Web.

Journalism companies, however, are making money on the Web. Fittingly, the journalism companies doing the best on the Web have the least amount of print baggage.

ESPN does quite well with ESPN.com. Why? Because it rocks.

ESPN has been pushing the journalism and technology envelope for years over at ESPN.com. Everyday they have online chats with reporters, scouts, former coaches and other experts (and these are massively popular); tons of database content; schedules, depth charts and other information on teams and of course the standard stories, photos and videos. ESPN recognized the importance of the Web years ago. The journalism companies that are really struggling right now still don’t understand the Web (LA Times for instance).

CNET is another great example. They are technology journalism company that has several online-only products. CNET covers the tech world from a decidedly online perspective.

Because CNET is a new company that road the Web to fame, it’s products make sense on the Web. CNET has many popular blogs, podcasts, videos, etc and their new media content is really good. They are not doing blogs and podcasts for the sake of doing them like so many newspapers companies have been. Rather, they are doing blogs and podcasts because they know they have to do them to succeed on the Web.

IGN (a Web site aimed at teenage and college-age men that covers video games, tech and more) is the same way. It’s online only, and yet it has managed to support itself for years. All of these companies I have mentioned are in the business of making online products. They are not in the business of shoveling a print product onto the Web, which unfortunately is exactly what the LA Times does.

But as long as people like Lazarus keep getting paychecks, newspapers will have keep losing profits and value. You can’t have people around who just don’t get it:

But until a long-term business model for the digital age presents itself, I believe newspapers at the very least must acknowledge that their content has value, and as such should stop giving it away online.

If the LA Times took his idea, they would be in even worse shape than they are now. Smart people like Rupert Murdoch realize there is a lot more money to be made in having products supported by ads, instead of behind pay walls. That’s why he will most likely make The Wall Street Journal free on the Web, and that’s why The New York Times decided to end Times Select.

Times Select made millions, but the Times’ felt that they would make millions more if they ended the program. Since Times Select ended, the Times has seen a huge 64% spike in traffic to nytimes.com. The Journal will be giving up $50 million a year in subscriber fees because they believe they can make more money with ads alone.

You know what? I’d bet that Murduch is right and that Lazarus is wrong. I never read The Wall Street Journal anymore (I grew up with it), because it costs a lot of money. If it becomes free on the Web, the Journal will have a new reader.

And that’s worth something.

This may come as a shock (or just plain bad news), but newspapers won’t be able to compete online or make compelling products without hiring talented Web employees.

Unfortunately, most newspapers pay poorly and most editors have no clue what to look for when hiring online employees or when creating online positions, which is very bad news for the industry. But that’s not how it should be, and some papers have put substantial resources into their online staffs (notably The New York Times, Washington Post and, of course, the Lawrence Journal World). Yoni Greenbaum, however, says that all newspapers should play to win:

We all know that, increasingly, online is where the money is, but it will take talent to earn it. I would urge newspapers to make sure they’re paying their online employees appropriately; if new positions open, hire the best you can afford. This is one place where you don’t want to go with the lowest bidder and more importantly, this one place where wrestling with a difficult issue and ultimately making the bad choice won’t do.

Ryan Sholin says we should expect even more than what Greenbaum is suggesting.

I’ll take that next step: Newspapers should be hiring reporters who can work in more than one medium. As we repeat over and over again, the days of the one-tool player are long, long gone.

If you want to work in this business, pick up at least one Web skill, or best of luck to you and your print clips.

Greenbaum and Sholin have good points. That’s what we should expect, but I still know plenty of newspapers that don’t expect their reporters to have an inkling (oh the irony) of Web knowledge. That’s ridiculous.

We need to put the time and effort in to find the proper Web talent. In addition, we can no longer accept “reporters” who only know how to write. It is almost 2008 — our readers expect — and demand — more.

Mindy McAdams has a great comment on Sholin’s post about how newspapers try to hire her best online journalism students for jobs that a monkey (or intern) could do:

I’ll do you one better: When your newsroom is permitted to hire an “online producer” to do brainless monkey work, alone, at night, tap seven reporters and inform them that each one must now do one night shift a week in the monkey-work job.

Then use the freakin’ salary to hire a skilled young (hungry) online journalist to do REAL online work!! Like, something that might actually interest your community!

I am sick and tired of newsroom managers who interview my best students and then offer them a monkey job. Way to shoot yourself in the other foot, folks.

McAdams hits on something that has bugged me for awhile. A lot of newspapers have “online producers” whose sole responsibility is to take print content and repackage it online. They often work terrible hours and have mindless jobs, and if they have any real Web talent, they’ll leave the industry within a few years for something far more rewarding.

This makes no sense for several reasons:

1. Why do newspapers still have print publishing systems that integrate so poorly with CMSes that they have to have several online producers just to get their print products on the Web? That’s a colossal waste of money and resources.
2. Why would you waste a valuable Web position on something so mindless? You need your Web money to go towards creating products for the Web, not repurposing print content.
3. Why do you need someone to come in at 3-4 a.m. to to put this content up? Why can’t it go up earlier? Most rational papers at least put this content up as soon as the print edition goes to bed, which is usually before midnight. More logically, however, newspapers should be putting stories online as soon as they are ready to go. Why wait and put all your content up at once in the middle of the night? Update your site constantly during the day. My girlfriend’s paper had the copy editors put the stories on the Web when they were done editing them. Later an online editor would come in and place them around the site.

Don’t believe this could possibly be happening today? The Indianapolis Star has an opening right now for an “online editor.” Reading this opening tells me everything I need to know about the state of the Star’s operations:

The Indianapolis Star is seeking an online editor to join the team responsible for the overnight production of IndyStar.com. The key responsibilities are to insure the seamless and accurate repurposing of news content from the print publication to online under the guidance of a senior online editor. (emphasis added)

Is there no better way to spend money and talent than on people to repurpose content? I have one word for you: interns. Full-time employees should not be doing this mindless monkey work anymore. Here’s an even better thought: get a print publishing system that integrates better with a CMS, or publish first on the Web, then in print.
But the Star is not looking for an online editor or someone to make compelling online content or applications. No, they are looking for someone who has used the Internet a few times or seen a computer in a Best Buy:

This is a hands-on position that requires an individual who knows or can learn, html editing, various content management systems and has Photoshop skills.

An online editor who doesn’t already know (X)HTML?!? I wouldn’t hire an online editor who doesn’t know the difference between XHTML and HTML. I wouldn’t hire an online editor who didn’t know some CSS at least (I’d prefer a strong grasp of CSS layouts).

This is the sad state of affairs we find ourselves in. Papers are spending money to hire random people to repurpose print content online, instead of hiring top-notch Web talent to create engaging online content and applications.

Let’s hire the best and start making products and content that people care about.

The No. 1 reason newspapers have trouble making money off the Web is because owners, publishers and business staff members fundamentally don’t understand the Web.

Everyone is trying to force print paradigms onto a new medium. Well, guess what? They won’t work.

If you want to make money off the Web, you should look at successful Web companies: Facebook, Amazon, Google, eBay and, yes, Craigslist. They have completely different business models and ways of generating revenue than newspapers. Honestly, why are people trying to force print business models onto the Web?

Of course they’ll fail, and papers will have to lay off countless staff members because of falling revenue. What do you expect? Publishers, stop being so lazy and clueless.

And if you can’t get a clue, do the whole industry a favor and resign. Instead of trying to figure out how we can take the same advertisers and similar ads from the print edition, why don’t we think of new, innovative ways to make money off the Web?

We need a multi-pronged strategy to attract national advertisers, local advertisers and a whole new market of people who never thought of advertising before. There are three core advertisers newspapers need to attract on the Web:

1. National advertisers – We’ll still need them, and they’ll provide a nice source of revenue. There is no reason to turn away from them, but it is foolish to focus efforts on a few, big advertisers when there are so many more opportunities elsewhere.
2. Local advertisers – Newspapers traditionally haven’t done that well with local advertisers because rates are too high. We shouldn’t just be trying to sell ad space to advertisers, but rather we should also be trying to sell them other services. How about micro pages on our sites where advertisers can showcase their products, services, menus, etc? If we think outside of the box, we can make a lot more money, and offer our clients better services. It’s win-win.
3. The never-been-advertisers advertisers – Anyone can be an advertiser on the Web – anyone. So, why wouldn’t we look to attract these people? With ads selling for as little as $5 per day, newspapers could make a killing in the long tail. Sure, $5 doesn’t seem like a lot, but it is in the aggregate if we make advertising attractive to everyone. Garage sales, youth groups, high school clubs, sports teams, social gatherings, etc. Why not?

Let’s look at what innovative companies are doing to make money off the Web and how that could apply to newspapers:

Facebook – There is a lot of innovative advertising going on at Facebook, and newspapers should pay a lot more attention to this company. Of course, many journalists and staff members at papers have never even been to facebook.com. But that has to change.

Every newspaper should take the idea that Facebook has of selling people flyers. Facebook sells ads for as low as $5 a day based on either views or clicks. If someone wants to reach more people in a given day they can pay more. If they want to advertise for multiple days, they can pay more.

But the genius of this is that it sets ad rates so low that college students can afford them (and facebook users have noticed ads from their fellow students for awhile now). I have seen a lot of campus groups advertising on Facebook, probably to the detriment of a lot of campus newspapers. Here’s the thing: advertising on Facebook probably makes more sense than advertising in the student newspaper.

Ads in a student newspaper can often run for more than $100 for an average-sized ad. There is no guarantee that a lot of students will even see it, but for $5 you can purchase thousands of page impressions for your school’s network on Facebook.

A group could get aggressive and purchase $15 of ads per day for three days. It’s still a lot less than a newspaper ad, and it will be seen by a lot more people at a place (Facebook) that is exponentially more popular than the student newspaper.

But that’s not all. Facebook has other services that are attractive to local advertisers. Facebook allows people to purchase polls and set up their own pages for their businesses and organizations. It’s just another way Facebook gives advertisers a more enticing product.

In addition, Facebook leverages its social network by allowing people to target their advertising by age, gender, location, interests and more. It’s just a much better — and more forward-thinking — way to advertise.

Craigslist – Craigslist has this great idea that newspapers should have stolen years ago – free classified advertising. Wait, what? Free?

Yes, it’s a killer idea. Think about it. While people are viewing free classifieds, you can display banner ads, contextual text ads and ads from local advertisers that might interest people looking for a similar product. And, like Craigslist, you can charge companies for certain kinds of ads, like job listings.

By making classifieds free, it encourages a lot more people to use them, which is great. That gives us a bigger opportunity to sell ad space. But there is another way to make even more money off of classified ads…

eBay – EBay has figured out a myriad of ways to charge people for services. All of those services are cheap in the abstract, but can add up to a nice chunk of change for eBay.

Craigslist has very plain classified ads. The user interface is ugly, it’s hard to make products stand out, and, frankly, it’s just not that enjoyable. But it’s free, so who cares?

Well, eBay likes to charge people to get “themes” that make their listings look better and stand out more. Newspapers could have free classifieds that look bland, but if people wants to have a theme they can pay $0.10 or whatever to get a theme that will turn their boring listing into a full-fledged micro site with an eye catching layout. If they want their listing to have a picture next to it, instead of just text (like eBay offers) we can charge them $1.

If people want their listings to be “featured” we could charge them $10-20 (eBay sells a lot of these). A featured listing is a listing that will automatically appear at the top of any search for a particular topic.

If people are looking for Nintendo Wiis on eBay, they will always be greeted with the featured listings first, which makes those listings stand out more. EBay provides a great example of ways to charge people to get extra features, because eBay has a myriad of ways they “help” people sell their products better. Combine this with a lot of what Craigslist does, and newspapers could have a dynamite classified advertising system that would easily outpace Craigslist.

I have news for journalists, Craigslist isn’t that great of a site. It’s ugly, it has too many listings for a lot of searches (featured listings would help alleviate this), it has a lot of disturbing people on it looking for or selling illegal services and there are a lot of scams. But it’s free, fast and highly searchable. It’s infinitely better than the expensive and hard-to-search listings that newspapers tried to pawn off on us.

If newspapers came along and offered classifieds that looked good, were easier to search and had a lot of the features that eBay has, they could turn the tide against Craigslist. But no one will listen to this advice. I’m not sure why I am even offering it.

Google – The biggest revolution Google brought to advertising is that it made ads contextual. It tries to match ads with content in order to get a much higher click through rate, and it works.

Newspapers need to match ads better with content. It doesn’t matter how prominent you place an ad if it doesn’t make sense for the content. Would a story about tween shopping habits really be served well by Budweiser ads?

Newspapers should also consider using Google ads to help make money on certain sections of their sites, like classifieds.

Amazon - Amazon has spent a lot of money and resources on making recommendations to people. Amazon doesn’t wait for people to figure out what they want to buy — it recommends items that it thinks a user might want based on their previous purchases and browsing experience.

Why don’t newspapers take this concept and apply it to their content? Why make everyone view the same content that a bunch of old, white males find appealing? Why not have a Web site that gives users news based on their previous browsing experiences?

Yes, we want to give people the same main, core content, but most content in newspapers and on their Web sites is pretty subjective in where it gets placed. Outside of the top stories, we should let users read what they want to read. Amazon is a great place to start to see how to do it well.

But this means hiring major-league programmers. Papers are woefully understaffed when it comes to technology people. Unfortunately, not enough publishers and top editors have bought into their importance, nor do they know how to even hire technical talent.

The Washington Post does have a feature at the bottom of stories that shows other stories that people read who read the same original story as you, and it’s a good start. But they should do a lot more. The Post and other papers need to dynamically generate sections of their home pages with content for individual users based on their previous browsing experience.

When journalists, however, complain that the Web is killing journalism, I just laugh. Journalists are killing journalism with their inability to understand the Web or their willful ignorance of technology.

Many journalists pride themselves on being technophobes. These are the last people on Earth who are going to get the Web or make compelling products for the Web. If your paper is overrun with these people it will never turn itself around unless you get rid of them.

There is a lot of money to be made on the Web. Instead of thinking inside the box — or the print edition — we should look at what top Web companies are doing to generate revenue on the Web. Compelling (Web centric) products and forward-thinking (Web) advertising will help save a lot of newspapers and make them stronger.

Anything less will doom a lot of papers. But don’t say there is nothing we can do, because there is plenty. We just haven’t been trying very hard.

Let’s try something new.

Former Tribune chief executive Dennis FitzSimons is set to receive $38 million from a severance package and stock options.

And all he had to do was all but destroy two of the nations proudest newspapers and watch as the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune become mere footnotes in history, while papers like the Washington Post ascend because of their much more forward thinking executives. WPNI has embraced the Web, while Tribune has been Tribune.

To be fair, the slide at Tribune started years before FitzSimons was chief executive, but he certainly didn’t do anything to reverse the companies fortunes. I can’t think of any great products that launched in the past three years, and none of Tribune’s papers are noted for having a strong Web presence.

Allan Mutter puts that large golden parachute in perspective by noting that $38 million is enough to hire more than 500 journalists in a metro market for a year, which is more than the Tribune or LA Times entire editorial staff (that math might be a little fuzzy because full-time reporters start at $60,000 a year plus benefits at the Chicago Tribune). But that’s not the full story. The real story is that Sam Zell has to take on a tremendous amount of dept to purchase Tribune, which means he’ll probably have to cut a lot of staff to help make this purchase work.

The more than $10 billion that Tribune Co. is borrowing to take itself private will be more than eight times its operating profit for the last 12 months, or nearly 2 ½ times the industry’s average debt burden.

That would be a mound of debt for any company in the most robust of industries in the sunniest economic times, which these ain’t. Unless Sam Zell knows something the rest of us don’t, it is not clear how he can meet the quarterly interest obligations on $1 billion in debt without either aggressively increasing sales, sharply reducing expenditures – or both.

It’s too bad that FitzSimons couldn’t come to a figure that was smaller — and more inline with his production as a manager. Tribune’s biggest problem is that it lacks talented and forward thinking managers (full disclosure: I interned for Tribune in 2005 and my brother was a financial analyst for the company until a few months ago). To succeed in these turbulent times, a company will need someone willing to take risks and embrace new technology.

A little bit more disclosure, Tribune is a sinking ship, and all the talented business people are leaving too.

How many of your colleagues know the names and locations of the new media/online journalism staff members at your paper?

And where are your new media people located? At many newspapers, if not most, they are off to the side somewhere — often out of sight, out of mind. Few newspapers integrate their Web producers, editors and developers into the newsroom. Many people tell me they don’t even know where their online staffers sit or their names.

Honestly, can you blame them if they are tucked away somewhere far from the rest of the editorial staff?

That’s not a good way to demonstrate the important of the Web to established print staffers. It creates a divide that ultimately hurts readers and papers. This divide often causes several issues.

1. Having online staffers be apart of the newsroom sends a powerful message about the importance of the Web to a paper’s success. Don’t underestimate this.
2. If your online team is off by itself, print staff members won’t be as apt to consider the Web when covering stories or producing features. Every big story package can benefit exponentially from having Web staffers in at the beginning.
3. Online members often feel left out and looked down on by the print staffers. This perception is never helped when the online staff is stuck by the marketing or business staff or cleaning staff or some random closet.
4. Without an integrated newsroom, a news organization will never, ever have a real continuous news desk, which is one of the biggest features users want.

The online team at my paper has never been in the newsroom with the print staffers. This has caused most staff members to think of our online presence as a mere after thought — if they think of it at all. It probably has even caused some to not consider us real members of the editorial team. This is set to change early next year, and should have a tremendous impact on our product and how we cover news.

Our readers will benefit tremendously from the increased collaboration, and it will send a strong message to the rest of the newsroom staff. Yes, some organizations like The Washington Post even have separate buildings for their print and online staffs, but they are an outlier. The Post is one of the best news organizations in the world, and WashingtonPost.com and Washington Post-Newsweek Interactive are filled with tremendously talented managers — albeit in Virginia instead of D.C. with the print staff.

Plus, the Post gets a lot of collaboration between it staffs, because it is a company that has been a big proponent of the Web for years. A much better example is the Post’s big northern rival, The New York Times. The Times just moved into a new building, with an integrated newsroom (watch this video that explains it). Editors say it has had a tremendous impact already, and having online staffers mixed with print staffers allows a much more organic process for creating news in the 21st century.

It’s just a lot easier for collaboration, which is the name of the game.

I’d like to get some feedback on how your paper’s or other paper’s you have seen do things.

I’m going to say it: Craigslist.

Am I fired? Whispering that two-syllable bugaboo can get you in a lot of hot water at many newspapers today, because Craigslist is “killing newspapers” by drying up the former newspaper cash cow of classified advertising.

Cry me a river.

Newspapers, you refused to give users what they wanted. You put no effort into your product, and you gave users an inferior product. You begged and pleaded for someone to come along and create a service like Craigslist.

And so Craig Newmark did, and it made millions of people very happy — except newspaper publishers who were far too slow to react (this seems to be a recurring theme). Newspapers resisted putting classifieds on their Web sites for years. Once they did, they put up non-standard, non-searchable abbreviations for words, which made the listings virtually useless.

Looking for a two-bedroom apartment with a fireplace? Well, you might find a “charming 2br apt with fpl,” or a “cozie 2bed apartment with a fp.” The people who took down classified advertising for the print edition used non-standard abbreviations, because there only goal was get all the words to fit. That’s fine for print, but terrible for online.

There are no space limitations for a Web site. Abbreviations don’t make sense, but newspapers never took the time to convert those abbreviations to real words. This made all of these listings unsearchable, and if something isn’t searchable on the Web, it is completely useless.

Enter Craigslist. It’s a searchable, database driven classified advertising Web site. It does everything that newspapers should have done, and it was founded precisely because there was a huge void in the market. It was not created to make money, but rather because there was nothing like it out there and people wanted a service like that.

Craigslist doesn’t even charge money to list an advertisement, nor does it have ads on the site. The site’s soul source of money comes from paid job ads in select markets and paid broker apartment ads in New York. Craigslist deserved to win over newspapers because it is a better product.

It was the only product that had users in mind. If newspapers cared about their Web users, Craigslist would have never been launched in 1999, which was long after Internet usage exploded in this country.

Fast forward to Dec. 19, 2007, and newspapers are still blaming Craigslist for their own institutional failings. One reader contacted me to tell me how Craigslist was removed from the lede of his story, because he was told he is not allowed to even mention Craigslist in writing.

Because, you know, Craigslist is the devil. What makes this even more egregious is that Craigslist was integral to his story — that’s why he mentioned the site. And now this young reporter finds himself in hot water with his very upset editor for making such a big faux pas.

He told me this experience makes him feel like his paper is “soft” and “that’s its journalism mission is compromised.” But this isn’t unique to him or his paper, because I hear this all the time from readers about their small and mid-sized daily newspapers. Honestly, where is the journalism these days?

There isn’t much journalism left and many younger journalists are leaving because of the appalling state of affairs of the industry. This episode shows the overwhelming hubris that many papers have blinded themselves with: “It’s only true if we print it!” and “People won’t find out about it if we don’t mention it!”

Right…

“This is why I’m hesitant to work for a paper again,” said another young reader about the Craigslist episode. “They are so screwed up.”

But we all know what is ailing most newspapers these days. “The business side is driving our editorial content,” the reporter who mentioned Craigslist told me.

Now, that’s serving readers.

I am tired of seeing people stick random content on their Web sites to see what sticks.

I am tired of seeing people place reject stories, photos and graphics from the print edition on their Web site.

I am tired of people believing that any story can be told well by any means.

Sometimes you might want to leave that video camera at home. Other times, you may not want to try to force that photo gallery or slideshow. And if a written story wasn’t written well enough for the print edition, what makes you think that online readers want to read it?

Online journalism is real journalism, and it has to be treated as such. I can’t even count all the times in the last few years I have been asked to stick something on a Web site that didn’t make it into the print edition because “the Web site has unlimited space.” The Web site is not your attic.

I’m glad to stick extra photos with a story as long as the photos are compelling. You will regularly find more photos on Stripes.com than in the print edition, because we believe in publishing extra content on our Web site that is worthwhile. But I also get harassed by photographers, editors, etc about putting up additional content that didn’t make it into the print edition because it wasn’t that good.

If it wasn’t good enough for the print edition, it sure as hell isn’t good enough for the Web site. Web sites reach a much bigger audience. Why would you want to stick your b-team content there?

In addition, online journalism doesn’t mean you have to try to force things. Yes, everyone loves photos. I’m not convinced everyone loves slideshows all the time, especially when the content sucks. I’m not sure what possessed the editors, produces or photographers at The New York Times to think this photo gallery about Mike Huckabee was a good idea, but it’s not.

It is the worst slideshow I have ever seen in my life. The first photo is a close up of someone’s hands as they fill out a commitment card for the campaign. Um, who cares?

The second is a close up of a Huckabee pin on someone’s sport coat. I think I know what a campaign pin looks like. There is no caption, although no words could describe how worthless this photo is.

Most of the photos don’t have captions, and those that do have very short ones like, “Meeting supporters at a community college near Des Moines.” Thanks New York Times.

This is a clear cut case of someone trying to force content where there is none. Just because you make a slideshow doesn’t mean you have created journalism. This slideshow could have worked if it was made into a photo essay, with big captions that talk about Huckabee’s campaign, how many volunteers he has, how much money he is raising, quotes from supporters in the photos, etc.

You know, tell a story. Frankly, there is no story being told, just 13 random pictures. Jeff Jarvis noted “newspaper online sites tend to use slideshows too much, just because the Internet lets them.” (Jeff pointed out the same less-than-stellar NY Times slideshow.)

That’s not journalism. Online journalism is real journalism, and it must be treated as such with standards and thoughtfulness. Our readers deserve better.

Howard Owens has similar thoughts. He wants us to try new forms of story telling, but we should be doing them appropriately:

Let’s be clear, we should do a lot of blogging, and a lot of video, and a lot of slideshows/photo galleries, and multimedia packages, and so on.

But we also need to start doing a better job of learning how to do each of these things well and appropriately.

Print journalists need to start thinking like web journalists.

The Web is here to stay, and it will be the dominant form of distribution of news and knowledge for the foreseeable future.

This might seem obvious but I have been hearing stories lately of older journalists believing that the Web is just a fad. One older editor believes that everything will come full circle after the infatuation with the Web wears off. In this alternate reality, newspapers are once again the No. 1 destination for news.

I couldn’t make this up if I wanted to.

The Web is here to stay, especially now that mobile networks are gaining power and mobile devices are becoming more usable. The Internet is arguably the greatest invention since the printing press when it comes to liberating knowledge and societies.

With an Internet connection anyone in the world can find out about anything, anytime over the Web. The personal computer and Internet dwarf other colossal inventions like the car, TV and refrigerator. When knowledge is freed, people and societies are freed. Not only has knowledge been freed, but the Web has brought on the social revolution.

The Internet allows everyday people to exchange ideas, question the status quo and form bonds. Now anyone can converse with anyone else anywhere in the world. It’s an incredible mechanism for the breaking down of stereotypes and assumptions.

Think you know everything about Communist China? Why don’t you go ahead and talk to someone from there or read one of the many dissidents’ blogs about how China needs democracy.

In the end one thing is clear — the Web is not a fad.

It’s shocking that we still have to bring up how the ability to handle breaking news is critical for a newspaper transitioning to a 21st century news model.

And news organizations need to be able to deliver news on a continuous cycle, not in big chunks once or twice a day. But here we are again:

The Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald embarrassed itself and the journalism world with its lackluster coverage of the mall shootings that killed eight people on Dec. 5. The World-Herald apparently thought this was 1987, not 2007, because they were unable to cover a story properly that they should have owned.

Instead the World-Herald got owned. Alan Mutter recounts the embarrassing details:

Less than half an hour after gunfire broke out at the Westroads Mall shortly before 2 p.m. today, local television and radio coverage was well under way, according to a detailed account at Omaha City Watch, a blog written by Jim Minge and Sean Weide. The television coverage included all the trimmings: live shots, interviews with survivors, details about the assailant who evidently killed himself and pictures taken by eyewitnesses at the scene.

As for the Omaha World-Herald, its Omaha.Com website crashed within minutes of the event and was not revived for nearly three hours, according to City Watch. At this writing, more than nine hours after the event, the creaking site still is unable to reliably load a page. (UPDATE 12.6.07: Twenty-four hours after the shooting, the site is not responding at all.)

After the paper got its site back up, it had one story and some comments from local politicians. No video, no audio, no photo galleries, no multimedia and the paper didn’t already have a way for readers to send in accounts, photos and other information. In other words, the World-Herald blew it because of a fundamental lack of preparedness.

It allowed a lot of other news organizations to own the story, despite it taking place in the World-Herald’s back yard. Newspapers that have coverage like that deserve to die, because they are not serving their readers. A newspaper that isn’t serving its readers serves no real purpose.

And I’m sure many people in Nebraska are wondering what purpose the World-Herald serves. The World-Herald failed because it had no plan in place for how to cover a disaster (and it appears any real breaking news). The paper simply doesn’t have leaders that get what it means to be a newspaper in the 21st century — it has very little to do with the paper and everything to do with the news.

Trust me, having good breaking news coverage on your Web site can help sell newspapers. Being crushed by CNN, FOX and even bloggers will not help your paper do better. Mutter understands the strategic importance of the Web (the most used format by people to get news):

While the print product remains the primary business at newspaper companies, their websites are strategically important not only for their long-term revenue potential but also because of their immediate power to engage readers and, most importantly, non-readers.

Every newspaper needs to be able to handle breaking news as it happens and be able to own stories that occur in their own backyards. Heck, when I was editor in chief of my college’s newspapers, we owned a breaking news story of when the sophomore class president robbed a bank. That was in 2005, and it was after the semester was over during finals.

The easiest way to cover breaking news is to be on a continuous news cycle. Readers come to Web sites multiple times a day and expect fresh content each time. We need to give readers content all day long, and if a paper is on a continuous news cycle, instead of a once-a-day print cycle, breaking news will be easy to cover.

On a related note, Mindy McAdams says breaking news should be routine.

And if it isn’t at your paper, why not?

Newspaper employees have to stop thinking about just their traditional roles and begin embracing convergence much earlier in the process.

This mean thinking of different ways to tell a story before reporting or interviewing, not after. It means bringing in Web people before a project is done, not after it is ready for publishing. And it means having reporters do more than just take written notes when covering an assignment.

Andy Dickinson says we need to think about convergence more seriously if we want to succeed (his first Carnival of Journalism post):

To make convergence work we need to make newsrooms behave in the way we are expecting the audience to work. We need to bring convergent behavior back in the newsroom, away from the point of publication. That means reporters need to take stills cameras out with them every time they leave the office. They should be recording every interview with a digital dictaphone. That doesn’t mean that they should be doing anything with that content. They should be making that content available, where appropriate, in the same way we know they should be using Delicious or a blog.

I think we need to change the mantra inside the industry to

Gather everything: Share

We need to do that well before we even think about where its going to go.

Dickinson has some good points. Most organizations still tack on multimedia at the end. “Oh, we have this big print package, let’s add some Web component at the end.” Or “the Web people can capture audio and do that multimedia stuff later on.”

That’s the exact wrong way to approach innovation on the Web. We have to think about the Web and multimedia content before and during our reporting.

Every print reporter should have a camera and get training in photo journalism. Those same reporters need to know how to work a digital recorder, in case an interview is worth posting on the Web. It would be great if all reporters knew how to use Twitter and blogging software.

Mindy McAdams implores us to quickly destroy all silos — or perish:

The TV and radio news people talk about putting their existing content on a Web site and teaching the kids to write “briefs” for the Web. The print people talk about writing and linking. The online people (always outnumbered, always out-gunned) try to talk about reporting in new ways — but no one ever seems to hear what we are saying. If the journalism schools could break out of this trap and “think different,” we could provide a great service to this field we all love.

Unfortunately, we are far away from this being reality.