The Changing Rules of Journalism
This weekend I had the chance to listen to a bunch of lectures from various universities.
First up is "The Changing Rules of Journalism" by Bob Cauthorn at UC Berkeley. He talks about the death of paper media and why most web versions of newspaper suck. These are the notes I took from a designer point-of-view.
To watch the full presentation click this iTunes U link.
Best Practices
- Show newer or different content from the paper version
- LCN is a local news station, their website show the same content that is presented on TV.
- CNN on the other hand lists newer or different content.
- Paper version should be more succinct
- Local newspapers love to make multiple-pages investigations, you need to read the 5-8 pages to finally get the conclusion or the good stuff.
- Offer a lot of content
- LCN offers the latest 5 news and 5 popular news, good luck finding more.
- CNN offers at least 20 news on the first fold of it's website, now that's news!
Reference Newspaper Websites
According to Bob Cauthorn, the following websites or newspapers should be references on how to present news:
I would add these two primarily for the amount of news found on the front page and their lightness on the eyes:
Final Word
A comment Bob Cauthorn makes during is presentation is that journalists shouldn't have blogs to comment news. Personally I couldn't agree more, what new content do they bring beside demagogy and disinformation or spinning of the news?
The only exception I can think of is Anderson Cooper because it is not heavily advertised on CNN's front page and his posts are actual stories - news - rather than comments.
How about you guys, what's your favorite news source?