ASNE: Breaking and local news gets the most hits online
This column was written for the ASNE magazine The American Editor and appeared on its web site on Sept. 23, 2007.
On April 16, it’s possible that all of us posted the same lead story on our Web sites. That’s the morning that a gunman massacred 32 people at Virginia Tech.
Maybe we did that morning in October 2006, when a gunman killed five girls and himself at an Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County, Pa. Or on April 2005, when Pope John Paul II died.
These are the “big stories,” the ones that you barely need to think about to understand their impact on readers and how to play them.
But during the regular hum of a news day, how much attention do you pay to national and world news on your Web site? Read more
ASNE: Reader comments online: Have we lost control?
This column was originally written for ASNE’s magazine The American Editor and appeared on its web site on Sept. 14, 2007.
In the reader comments on an April 24 crime story on the Arizona Daily Star’s Web site, one reader posted exactly the sort of remark that makes Executive Editor Bobbie Jo Buel’s skin crawl.
“I wonder if he’s going to be yet another Muslim gone on a shooting spree,” wrote the reader.
Buel’s experience isn’t isolated, and it’s an issue editors increasingly must address as newspaper Web sites “get religion” about opening up to public comment.
But what’s the best way to keep out the riff-raff? The answer? There is no best way. All the techniques have an upside … and a downside. So, which downside are you most willing to live with? Read more