The free content isn't helping

I'm in the midst of this battle right now myself. The powers that be keep nagging us to update the web site but ... they don't want stuff that's already being put in the paper.

I asked them what they would like us to do since we're having a hard enough time filling the paper as it is with the types of staff reductions we've had over the past five years and their response was "Well, just put up stuff that doesn't take long to do." (Such as Pet of the week, photo of the week, etc).

I countered with the fact that we shouldn't be spending our time putting up crap not fit enough to even run in our paper. They said we should find new stories in addition to our print product for our web.

All without giving us a single red penny more.

Yeah, sorry, that's not going to be happening anytime soon. Don't like the site? Give us the money to improve it or the orders that we have to focus on it and not the paper.

 

Assuming that there are advertising dollars to begin with (chances are, there aren't many)

 

it's the question we all face...how to treat this web monster?

With reduced staffs...I have to wonder why more papers don't rally the troops to the print product and leave the web bare-bones. Why we put an emphasis on giving our product out for free is beyond me. I've had plenty of people say they've stopped getting the paper and they just check it online...these are the people that want the news is miniature...instead of the full stories that appear in our print product, but it's enough for them.

 

[newspaperceo]

Well, that guy's laid off. Let's see if some college kid will take $13k/year.

[/newspaperceo]