As one of the premier sources of transatlantic news, The Economist is known as much for its dry wit as it is for its in-depth coverage of news and foreign affairs. However, a trip to its website reveals that one area the newspaper won't be revolutionizing is reader interaction.
Like many of its print brethren, The Economist seems to be at a crossroads when it comes to citizen journalism - or even citizen opinion. One visit to its online edition reveals that interaction between the newspaper and its readers is sparse, and confined to only certain sections of the website (and thus, only certain types of content).
For instance, you won't find any comment sections offered on main section news articles. The news is presented exactly the same as it is in the print edition; the stories are still informative, certainly, but the lack of new, easily-implemented features makes the whole magazine seem a step behind. Sure, online comment threads can get pretty snarky, and The Economist does have a reputation to think about. However, protecting a publication's integrity at the expense of innovation might do more harm than good.
To be fair, The Economist does offer a reader response forum - sort of. To actually express your opinion while reading The Economist Online, you're limited to the comments pages of the newspaper's blog section, a "lightly moderated" section of reporter-run musing that occupies a lonely link under the website's "Opinion" heading. While these blog pages are nice enough, they're no substitute for allowing comments and debate on main page stories. Readers seem to agree; one look at the paltry comment numbers on most of the blog entries suggests that the newspaper's current efforts might be in vain.
CNN.com has always been my online news outlet of choice, mainly due to the fact that it's fast, easy, and has a short URL. When I want hard-hitting insights, I'll look elsewhere, but for daily briefings, CNN is king.
Much like The Economist, CNN does not offer a comment section on its main news articles. However, CNN has taken the leap into the world of citizen reporting, launching its I-Report service last summer in an effort to give voice - and video - to would-be journalists across the world.
After poking around I-Report for an hour or so last week, I realized that the service, while useful, suffers from wild inconsistencies in both quality and content. For every story on the Katrina rebuilding effort, there are two about fireworks or balloon races. In fact, out of the 43 stories on the main I-Report page when I checked this morning, 18 were related to weather or natural phenomenons, and only six dealt with "hard" news topics. The problem isn't that CNN allows people to post general interest stories; the problem is that these stories aren't separated into different sections or otherwise distinguished from one another. By giving general interest stories the same billing as hard news, CNN seriously undercuts I-Report's potential impact.
Elsewhere on the site, readers can participate in discussions of user-generated blog content (once again, moderated by reporters and generally steered towards non-political topics), or even browse photographs of other I-Reporters. While CNN probably won't be replacing Facebook or Myspecae any time soon, its attempt at fostering some sense of community is admirable. Though flawed, I-Report is generally well-executed and, assuming that its moderators learn how to strike the proper balance of news and feature stories, has the potential to impact the news-making process even more.
Finally, we come to my newly-adopted hometown newspaper, The Washington Post. After reviewing the web presence of an international newspaper and a cable news station, I figured that covering a major American newspaper would pretty much complete the hat trick.
The Post got on my good side right from the beginning by actually offering comment sections on all stories, not just the ones in watered-down blog sections. Users have to register and agree to a terms of service agreement before posting, in order to ensure that he discourse remains civil. For their part, the readers don't seem to mind: one story about an upcoming Republican candidate debate, posted early Wednesday morning, already had 109 comments by 11 am.
Another interesting feature offered by the Post is the "Save and Share" feature found within stories. The small grey box contains prominent links to Digg, del.ic.ious, Reddit, and the bookmarking services offered by Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook. The Post's is the first site I've visited that not only allows, but actively encourages the sharing of stories via aggregators like those mentioned above.
The Post doesn't stop there, though. They've still got three section of blogs (Political, Opinion, and Local), moderated discussion groups, and even a feedback section where readers can "yell, scream and otherwise exclaim about what the Post did wrong this week". Unlike the other two news outlets, where reader interaction comes at a premium, The Washington Post seems more than happy to led readers a voice in their online edition.
While The Washington Post is the clear winner in the interaction competition, CNN's I-Report, through it's emphasis on multimedia, still has the potential to provide the most moving, influential citizen reporting out there. Utilizing either of these ideas would also benefit The Economist, which seems unwilling to abandon their trusted broadcast model in favor of a newer, more interactive approach.
1 comment:
excellent thinkage
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