Newspaper Website Competition

You need more criteria (0.00 / 0)

I'll accept that the Valley News site is user-friendly in making clear that it has very little information available. But it still gets my vote for worst site.

There are a lot of criteria:
* Quality of original source material
* How much of that is online
* How far back it goes
* How easy it is to search -- either with site or Google tools
* What is the registration process and cost

I think the Monitor gets top score. The UL does a good job but, well, it's the UL.

The Sentinel provides free web access to recent articles for its print subscribers, so I use it regularly. But I don't link to it, because most others can't read it.

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by: elwood @ Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 19:53:57 PM CST

Interesting. (0.00 / 0)

I'm really fond of the Valley News site, just because it is so up front about everything.  And, oddly, I find that though it's not on google news, its articles are possibly more likely to show up on plain old google than some of the other papers.

The content quality question...well, I have a good Valley News story when we get to that.

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by: Laura Clawson @ Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 20:45:39 PM CST

[ Parent ]

When I lived up there (0.00 / 0)

they had some great writers. My complaint is just, when I look online, there's almost nothing available.

No matter how friendly the clerk is when she explains, "I'm sorry, we don't have that book," after I while I shop somewhere else.

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by: elwood @ Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 20:54:05 PM CST

[ Parent ]

VN (0.00 / 0)

I have to second this. I've worked in the Circulation Dept at VN for the last few years and I've given up on trying to get more content online - my impression is that there is an understandable fear that free online content will lead to even further drops in our circulation. Some of my younger/newer coworkers want to keep trying so maybe things will change...

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by: NateP @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 19:14:23 PM CST

[ Parent ]

This one's easy. (0.00 / 0)

Bass' website was easily the worst.  Oh, wait, you mean newspapers.

Well, The Valley News doesn't get linked to Google News, which pretty much finishes it off for me, even though I like the paper.

The Telegraph seems to be buried in the strangest software that loads slowly no matter how high the speed of your internet.  Though I should say, they do make an effort to get their stories online fast.

My pick would easily have to be The Eagle Tribune, although it serves both MA and NH on the border.  I pick them because reading an article there is always a challenge online, what with the teeny tiny font shoved all the way to the left, and how you have to click through seven pages just to read a short piece.

Here's an example.

birch, finch, beech

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by: Dean Barker @ Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 20:00:33 PM CST

Oooh! I can trump Bass' web site! (0.00 / 0)

After Benson was criticized his first year for blowing off the annual Easter Egg hunt for kiddies on the State House lawn, he announced a New Hampshire web site where kiddies from all over the state could look for Easter eggs the next year!

E-chocoloate! Yummy!

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by: elwood @ Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 20:16:52 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Oww, it hurts my eyes... (0.00 / 0)

Ugg that is bad... signal to noise ratio approaches 1:4

Hope > Fear




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by: Mike Hoefer @ Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 21:36:15 PM CST

[ Parent ]

It's not a big truck (eom) (0.00 / 0)

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by: DavidNYC @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 00:10:02 AM CST

[ Parent ]

great topic (0.00 / 0)

I think the Keene "Sentinel Source" website is shameful. Far to much blinky stuff and the requirement to be a subscriber or  pay ~$100/year for access is clearly behind the times.

Just last weekend I mentioned to a friend that I was thinking of writing a LTE about the above.

As New Hampshire's Oldest Newspaper it is a shame I need to ready the Concord Monitor or Union Leader to get my news.

Hope > Fear




Create a free Blue Hampshire account and join the conversation.

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by: Mike Hoefer @ Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 21:23:33 PM CST

That's my thinking. (0.00 / 0)

I definitely count the Sentinel as my least favorite site.  I don't think I've ever found anything useful there, or at least not without being told I had to pay.

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by: Laura Clawson @ Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 22:04:59 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Shameful? (0.00 / 0)

Stupid, yes; I think there's a good case (but I haven't seen the books of any of the papers).

I cut a lot of slack to newspapers as they try to change their way of doing business to survive as media patterns are shifting.

I think:

The VN has it wrong to NOT invest in web content.

The Sentinel has it wrong in relying on fairly expensive online subscriptions -- and I have a hard time believing they get enough subscribers at $100 a pop to justify the effort.

The NYT has it wrong in firewalling the opinion pages.

The Globe has it wrong to require free registration.

But I'm glad it isn't my job to figure out how to make the numbers add up and allow each paper to keep publishing.

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by: elwood @ Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 23:21:12 PM CST

[ Parent ]

You know about BugMeNot, right? (4.00 / 1)

www.bugmenot.com - lets you bypass registration on many sites

Also a fantastic Firefox extension that implements their db.

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by: DavidNYC @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 00:11:19 AM CST

[ Parent ]

It might be a bit strong, but... (4.00 / 1)

yes, shameful, or at least very disappointing are the words I would use. As a region we tend to be overlooked in the state; an open and accessible Keene Sentinel would, in a small way, help that.

With all that is known about web usability today it is a shame they have not hired or consulted with (any one of us could do it)  someone who "gets the net". They are firmly stuck in a crica 2000 web ethic.

The newspapers hasten their own demise by these poor choices. Those of us who are internet mavens but are old enough to not have had dorm room internet access in college (my frosh year one kid I knew had a Apple2c the rest of us had to tromp to the centralized lab if we wanted to use zywrite on the mainframe) may give newspapers the benefit of the doubt out of nostalgia or sympathy for a paradigm shift. My guess is the first year students 20 years later will not have the same concerns.

Being very local and very open is the best chance for small papers to stay relevant and necessary. The AP is never going to cover the District 10 Senate Race or the Keene v. Monadnock Turkey Tussle. This is the lever local papers need to employ in order to survive.

I guess what it comes down to is how do they make money? Subscription vs. Advertising. I think the advertising, or "subscribe" to opt out of advertising is a good model. Eudora used this with their email software for bit and of course so does dkos. Then, of course you need to design your advertising to be effective for the buyers, but no overly obnoxious for your readers.

Robert Cringely covers some of these topics but focuses on the impact of Craigs List is having on newspapers main profit center, the classified section. http://www.pbs.org/c...

Hope > Fear




Create a free Blue Hampshire account and join the conversation.

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by: Mike Hoefer @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 08:43:36 AM CST

[ Parent ]

I agree with all your points (0.00 / 0)

What keeps me from using 'shameful' is, the newspapers who have adopted a much friendlier web approach seem to be failing too.

The Poynter Institute examines issues in print journalism, from ethics to business issues.

Part of the problem for a paper like the Sentinel is a simple matter of scale. The web advertising revenue they can get is based on the number of clicks and eyeballs they attract--and their local coverage will never attract anywhere near the number of eyeballs that the Boston Globe will. Their costs are lower too, of course; but a large paper doesn't have as many employees per thousand readers as a local.

But everything you say about the effects and likely results is true. As primary season heats up, papers like the Sentinel can get a larger audience and have a larger impact if they adopt a more web-friendly approach. I hope they figure out a better approach soon.

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by: elwood @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 09:21:17 AM CST

[ Parent ]

If the Monitor carries a story (0.00 / 0)

I'll link there. Failing that the UL.

The Sentinel is my least favorite site. I think their pay-wall policy is short-sighted, and it definitely persuades me to reference stories in the CM or UL instead.

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by: Mike Caulfield @ Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 22:46:56 PM CST

One other frustrating thing (0.00 / 0)

Is that nearly all NH newspapers are NOT available on Lexis. I can understand for small local papers. But all dailies really ought to be on there. It makes research a lot harder without it. I think the only one on there, sadly, is the UL.

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by: DavidNYC @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 00:13:18 AM CST

This is actually more a function of Lexis (0.00 / 0)

Than of the papers. Lexis (or actually, I should say, Nexis) is obsessed with "papers of record", which frankly means less and less.

Newsbank, a company for which I used to work, has taken the philosophy that very often the local stories have a value, and has pursued smaller papers, its source list is fast making Lexis and Dialog look like a joke. Nexis has the full text of about 100 American newspaers. Newsbank has the full text of over 1,000 American newspapers.

Of course, Nexis still has the brand name that everyone goes nuts over, it has the legal content that sucks the lawyers in, and it has managed to maintain a couple exclusive newspaper arrangements.

But if you're looking to do non-legal research, Newsbank products are really where it's at.

They do have a pay per article version at http://www.newslibra... although it has less sources than the other products. And it doesn't include the Keene Sentinel, because unlike the Boston Globe, Time Magazine, and the Chicago Tribune, the Sentinel has no interest in letting Newsbank resell its content.

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by: Mike Caulfield @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 07:26:59 AM CST

[ Parent ]

They must have interesting debates (0.00 / 0)

in the Sentinel office.

The editorial page editor, Guy McMillan, is pretty knowledgable on telecom and Internet issues; it seems to be a bit of a hobby with him. (He understood the nuances of the Bass sockpuppet story pretty quickly). I suspect that he would rather have the paper more prominent and accessible on the web.

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by: elwood @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 07:33:08 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Heres One: (0.00 / 0)

The Conway Daily Sun.

I tried, in vain, to use their website to find out about the local happenings from my home town.  You need a subscription to access most features.  Also, 90% of their state wide or political news comes from AP.

I'll just read the concord monitor.

Oh, for a real hoot, check out their blog.  Sure they updated it Thursday, but their previous update came on 11/8.  They don't even host it themselves, they use blogger.

Oh wait, NOW I remember why we called it the Conway Daily Scum, or Scum Rag.  It's a terrible useless paper.

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by: Nicholas Gunn @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 03:40:04 AM CST

ha (0.00 / 0)

As nhcollegedem knows, the SUN is a free paper - so they make up for that by charging to access the website.

The blog is purely embarassing. Lots of anonymous mud slinging. It's embarassing.

It's not a terrible useless paper, though, nhcollegedem. Every other Friday they publish an extremely gifted writer on their editorial page.

NH Kucinich Campaign

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by: susanb @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 18:49:06 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I'm terribly sorry. (0.00 / 0)

Maybe i just think its useless because i used to live right next door to where they printed it, and the late night noise was terrible.

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by: Nicholas Gunn @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 19:00:30 PM CST

[ Parent ]

don't be sorry (4.00 / 2)

You couldn't be expected to realize that I'm the "brilliant" columnist! *snicker*

NH Kucinich Campaign

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by: susanb @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 19:18:48 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Does Bill Marvel (0.00 / 0)

still publish his blatherings on Mondays?

The horrible things that man said about the high school...  Always pissed me off when I was a student at Kennett.

I remember four years ago, several front page news stories were devoted to the loss of the Kennett High Music Director, Brad Hagen.  Everyone railed him on the editorial pages for a while.  Imagine, the big news in town being the loss of a music director...

Thats when I started reading that paper, and Bill Marvel was one of the people bitching about Kennett.  Once he wrote a particularly nasty piece about my graduating class, the class of '04.  I think I wrote a LTE in response that got published.

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by: Nicholas Gunn @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 20:47:17 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Bill is still (0.00 / 0)

the Monday columnist. Bill and I are friends, but I agree that he's been pretty brutal about Kennett. Some of it deservedly so - and some not.

Is college better than Kennett? (PLEASE SAY YES!!)

NH Kucinich Campaign

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by: susanb @ Sat Dec 02, 2006 at 12:58:39 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Debate and discussion (4.00 / 2)

Congratulations on the launch of your service, which is timely, given the weight of the issues in the political arena and the new, promising alignments in Concord and Washington.

Like other news organizations, The Keene Sentinel welcomes new voices to public debate and discussion, particularly when the commentary goes a bit deeper than some of that expressed in your forum on newspaper Web sites.

The posted comments on The Keene Sentinel's web operation surprisingly focus on design and economic model, as opposed to the content; that's a bit akin to immediately dismissing a book or a print newspaper solely for the look of its cover and the fact that it's not free. Indeed, there may be something of value inside that book or newspaper, and there may be an impulse other than rapacious greed on which idea of a fee is based.

In any case, a fair portion of The Sentinel's Web content is free to users, and a good share of that content is original to the online side, as opposed to being merely an electronic redrafting of the print edition. For example, a heavily-used interactive and educational tool that drew users into discussions of Keene's city budget earlier this year was original to SentinelSource -- and, not incidentally, the beneficiary of a rather impressive industry award. And some of the features in the "Special Reports" section -- an entirely free section -- have Web-only components.

The online field is still pretty new -- The Sentinel's Web operations go back only 10 years -- and the pace of evolution is high. Given the architecture of the medium, anybody who gets in should be open to critical comment, even when the comment doesn't account for such factors as the comparative sizes of enterprises and their markets. Accordingly, we thank you for your observations on SentinelSource, and will bear some of them in mind as we move forward.

Best of luck with the site!

Jim Rousmaniere, Editor, The Keene Sentinel

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by: rousmaniere @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 15:13:37 PM CST

Thank You for Commenting (0.00 / 0)

The posted comments on The Keene Sentinel's web operation surprisingly focus on design and economic model, as opposed to the content; that's a bit akin to immediately dismissing a book or a print newspaper solely for the look of its cover and the fact that it's not free.

I would disagree with your assertion.  The design of a website is a critical component in evaluating its value.  If a web page isn't readable, usable, and easily accessible it will not be read by those using the internet for news.

Websites that require a subscription are also less valuable.  Ask yourself, why would anyone pay to subscribe to the your online newspaper when they could read The Concord Monitor, The Union Leader, or thousands of other internet news sources for free?

Like other news organizations, The Keene Sentinel welcomes new voices to public debate and discussion, particularly when the commentary goes a bit deeper than some of that expressed in your forum on newspaper Web sites. [...]

The online field is still pretty new -- The Sentinel's Web operations go back only 10 years -- and the pace of evolution is high.

You welcome new voices to the debate if it goes a bit deeper than the commentary on our website?  I would remind you that our website has been around for only two weeks, and has already attracted the editors of local newspapers as readers.  I can't wait to see how deep the commentary becomes a year from now. 

Besides, I find elwood's seemingly bottomless well of historical political knowledge more insightful than most things I've read in newspapers. 

When was the last time the Keene Sentinel tried to analyze the problems associated with New Hampshire's fractured executive branch?

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by: Nicholas Gunn @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 15:46:12 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I was a Sentinel paperboy (4.00 / 1)

and a Sentinel reader as a kid. My first published work was a letter to the editor of the paper.

My interest in both politics and the dynamics of New Hampshire politics began while I was reading the paper (and grew when I read a lot of other stuff, of course). It was the only local news media worth much - we had radio with local rip'n'read staff, who talked about the "Monnondock" region.

I'm grateful that our community can still support the paper and it can still serve us.

I'm a Sentinelmental fool on the subject.

How to encourage and support effective local news media is a critical question for America today. Maybe we can be a productive forum to help figure it out.

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by: elwood @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 21:14:30 PM CST

[ Parent ]

This is a fairly widespread (0.00 / 0)

perspective among bloggers in particular. You should see the vitriol that the NYT got when it moved its columnists behind a paywall!

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by: elwood @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 15:55:04 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Thanks so much for commenting. (4.00 / 1)

I will be writing a post on quality of reporting in the not-too-distant future, I promise.  This post was spurred by my frustration trying to research some previous story - I would love to be able to make more use of the Sentinel, but I can't get it online and they don't seem to sell it in Hanover, so my options are very limited.

I understand and lament the difficulties faced by newspapers these days, and I'm not sure anyone's found exactly the right answers.  I happen to have problems with the ones embodied on your site.

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by: Laura Clawson @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 16:14:16 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Thanks, and welcome. (0.00 / 0)

I think it's wonderful that you've come here directly to chat with us on this issue; it's miles better than an experience I had with another editor of a major NH paper (long story I needn't mention here). 

I do hope Blue Hampshire will be a hub not only for our regular readers but also for interaction with the media and our elected officials.

The relationship of bloggers with the media is odd, in that the former is often a fierce critic of the latter, yet the former depends deeply on the latter as well.  Blogging without good sourcing and links to solid reporting and facts is often little other than sound and fury.

On that note, I have noticed over my blogging life that those newspapers whose online presence does not show up on news search results such as Google News rarely get attention.  For example, I once wrote something about Hanover's vote to impeach Bush and Cheney, citing a few key sentences from The Valley News, on Daily Kos.  The readers of that site (some 600,000 visits a day) found it interesting enough to keep it alive for most of the day, yet due to The Valley News' not being linked to a news search engine, or even putting that article online, they had no idea whatsoever of the impact they could have had on their web presence.

Similarly, I typically enjoy reading The Sentinel online when the occasion arises, but I rarely see it among my daily  news search results for local political stories.  If I did, I would be much more likely to link to it as the prime source for a story I would comment on.

Again, thanks for showing up, and I look forward to any mutual synergy that may arise from our look at you and you at us.

birch, finch, beech

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by: Dean Barker @ Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 17:18:09 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Pay-wall compromise (0.00 / 0)

If I'm frustrated by the Sentinel, it's because I think it remains the center of our community (I'm a Keene resident), and because the website is somewhat behind the times it leaves a bit of a vacuum here.

I understand that you are in a very delicate situation regarding business model...and you have to find the right financial mix that allows you to produce quality content.

But I also get the sense we are losing a great opportunity for the Sentinel to continue to be the center of Keene public life. By putting up barriers to participation in that community, I think you may be guaranteeing it's failure and eventual replacement.

You're intimately familiar with budgetary numbers I never hope to have to deal with or make work. But in an ideal world we would be pushing traffic to your site...as second-level consumers of your content we would be promoting your site. And in an ideal world, conversations that start over here might move over there and vice versa.

Right now, that wall makes it difficult.

If there is any way that we can assist with that, we'd be happy to do so. Personally, I think a standard 30-day pay wall with the articles available for piecemeal purchase after that is a system we are all used to working with, and might be a good step, but as I say, I do not know the numbers.

I do hope that the Sentinel remains the center of our community, and would be happy to work with you in anyway that might be helpful.

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by: Mike Caulfield @ Sun Dec 03, 2006 at 12:22:52 PM CST

[ Parent ]