The News & Record has hired a new executive editor, Jeff Guager. If the guy is worth his salt, he probably already has a lengthy to-do list. Hear are two that should be priorities, the first should be his first:
1. Have your reporters stop being stenographers. We can read the press releases ourselves on blogs and social media. We can hear and see the assertions of people promoting their interests on Youtube and websites. We don't need intermediaries for those; we don't need professional regurgitators of the pronouncements of the self-interested, we need you to check them out and align them with the facts if necessary. A reporter who is unwilling or incapable of operating without a big fat dose of skepticism should be reassigned to the society page.
2. Shake up your online department. It is simply ridiculous that for nearly a year now requests for a mobile edition of the website have been met with "We are working on an app, but we don't have the money; we are behind schedule but are working on an app."
A mobile version of a website does not require an app. It is simply a modified web design. If WFMY can do it, so can you. Get some people with design and programming skills and get out of their way. [Note, I said people with design and programming skills, not really good Drupal users.] Yes, make some apps too—this decade would be good.
Putting your best content behind a Google-proof wall is not smart either. People still link to such content, but the search engines don't find it.
2 comments:
With respect to Item 2, the person who can truly make that happen, or keep it from happening, is already in the building: Publisher Robin Saul.
When editors say they don't have the money to do X, it's usually not because they haven't already sought it.
I'm not privy to the decision making process, and it wouldn't surprise me that the inert publisher stands in the way in shaping priorities, but we are not talking about some huge expensive endeavor here. Just the proper objectives for people with proper skills.
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