People shouldn’t have to read the print edition to get the best, most in-depth coverage.
In fact, logic would dictate that a newspaper’s Web site would have more coverage due to the limitless nature of its medium and its ability to display so many different kinds of news and content. That’s what logic would tell you. That’s what 2008 would tell you.
And that’s what people want. They want Web products that kick ass. They want to get news on their computers and mobile devices — and they want it now.
And far be it for us to tell them, “No! You need to read the print edition to get all the news, because we haven’t figured out how to properly monetize our online content.” That’s the business staff’s problem, not editorials.
If that’s how we’re going to act, people are going to leave our Web sites and find new ones. Every day new competitors pop up. The Web makes it possible for anyone to join in the conversation.
Recently a managing editor of a small daily wrote a blog post that ended with:
So… to those local folks who only read us online, I have this to say: I’m sorry. Boy, are you missing out.
As you can imagine I commented on it. I said that people in her coverage area should be able to read her paper’s Web site and get all the information they need. In fact, the Web can be home to many projects — especially databases, multimedia, blogs, etc — that the print edition never could be.
I told her it was up to her paper to find a way to monetize their Web site. What spurred this post, however, wasn’t that exchange. It was the fact that my comment was deleted.
I’m not Sam Zell. I don’t go buccaneering around the Internet swearing up a storm. My comment was civil, thoughtful but it was critical to a point.
I strongly feel that Web products cannot be left behind. In fact, they should probably be the epicenter of news operation. Because I know that’s what people want, and I’m in the business of making products that people want.
In a comment to another poster the editor left this:
Our core product, the print edition, is obviously currently at the center of what we do.
Is that really what your readers want? But here’s the real moral of this story: You can’t control the conversation. This editor clearly thought she could.
My comment originally went up and another person commented on it, but my comment was later deleted. Many in the old-guard media are used to a time when they control the conversation — they get to select which letters to the editor get printed, who gets covered, etc.
But here’s the thing, this is 2008. I have a blog, I have Twitter and I’m not going to roll over every time some old-guard media person thinks they can silence my voice.
Because they can’t. They can’t silence any of us. That’s what the power of the Web is.
It’s a revolution.
And you can either join the social, two-way conversation that is the Web or you can be left behind. That’s your choice. But don’t try to force your old rules on our revolution.
Everyone finally has a voice. That’s a beautiful thing.