Web updates

I can't think of a good reason why you wouldn't want everyone trained to update the site. If you have a designated "updater," would he work 7 days a week? What happens when he gets sick, goes on vacation, wants to sleep, is away from his computer when a huge story breaks, or leaves for another job? You have to spread out the responsibility not just to avoid one person being overwhelmed/burned out, but also to emphasize the importance of the online product to the entire staff.

I'm at a small paper, too. We've found that you have to train everyone thoroughly and back that up with a robust best practices document containing step-by-step instructions for every aspect of your Web publishing process. That way, everybody can be self-sufficient; they have no excuse for emailing their stuff to the "web guy" rather than posting it themselves.

On top of that, you can't just say, "We need Web updates!" and leave it at that. Include it in the relevant employees' goals, keep track of how many updates each person has done, and make that part of the annual review process. It's worked well for us; now if our reporters are working on a story for the next day, they're accustomed to putting the first 5-6 paragraphs on the site ASAP with a tagline that says, "Read tomorrow's newspaper for more."

We do have a web editor who posts weather updates, traffic updates, wire stories, etc. throughout the afternoon, and he's ultimately responsible for the quality of the overnight update, but in theory he should just be fine-tuning at night. The heavy lifting is done by the section editors (i.e., the web editor tweaks the priority of stories, assign different keywords/taxonomies, fixes glaring errors, adds related videos or slideshows, etc. but the section editors make sure all stories and photos are entered into the system in the first place).

 

My problem with having everyone on the staff having the ability to post updates is it basically eliminates the same process followed for the print product. Someone can post something that's poorly written, something that's not very newsworthy or something that's flat-out wrong because the copy doesn't have to go through any editing.


EDIT: Dammit, Moddy!

 

OK, so establish a workflow process for editing copy before it's posted to the web, and make sure everyone adheres to it.

Your web publishing applications -- like any tool -- can be misused, but that's no reason not to teach people how to use them in the first place. My dad taught me how to use a chainsaw; so far, I've managed not to attack anybody with one.

EDIT: Emphasis on "so far"

 

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I'm concerned about lack of editing on the web as well, particularly from reporters who work different schedules as editors. We can't expect timely, perfect updates throughout the morning AND fact-checking, editing, and a simple "is this newsworthy" test if editors aren't in until the afternoon.

 

Most people in the newsroom have been trained on how to post an update. I think there's two or three older employees who are still a little scared of technology.

 

It's the "scared of technology" people that I'm most concerned about. Anybody have any ideas on getting them excited about the web? Other than, of course, saying "do this, it's your job?"

 

Also, a key thing to remember is that you don't have to have a 24'' story ready for the first post. If you know the coach has been fired, post it. In two sentences. Or one. Then, flesh it out with what you know, and, almost importantly, what you don't know. Make that story three or four graphs.

Then start updating it. Add some background to the story, update. Get a reaction quote. Update. Get a quote from any participant in the story. Update. Think of them as bullet-type info to update your story, pushing older information to the bottom of the story.

 

In other words, pretend you're AP.

 

Exactly, the stuff we may think is ridiculous, the readers eat up. If there are hits to be had, better get something up. This isn't going away.

We don't have a quota or anything, but we update WAY more than news. We do web-only stories sometimes.

 

Exactly. They're a good model for breaking news coverage.

 

"Pretend you're the AP"

That would require talent, tenacity and the ability to diplomatically handle both readers and members.

Yep, updating the Web is tough. What the hell do they expect? That we cover the news when it happens. That we get out of the office and the press box to find out stuff?

Damn this new stuff is hard.