Traditional print publications doing disservice to their online readers
There seems to have been an increase in the number of articles about podcasting in print publications over the last two weeks. As I read the articles, I noticed something common — they have failed to do a complete job in the online editions of the report. They have done so in one of two ways:
- They have failed to provide typewritten URLs to websites, blogs, podcasts and events that were mentioned in the article; and,
- They have failed to provide clickable links to websites, blogs, podcasts and events that were mentioned in the article, whether or not the URL was mentioned.
Hyperlinking is the foundation of The Web. Indeed, it’s part of the user experience and has become an expectation of everyone using the Internet. Any site that does not offer this core functionality is not just missing the point, it’s doing a disservice to the readers/visitors of that site — fee-based subscribers or the general public.
It’s time for newspapers and other media organizations to update their style guides and reporting policies to require clickable links to all sites mentioned in their articles.
April 30th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
This failing by the print media is nothing new. We law librarians have always complained about how newspaper stories reporting on major court decisions never give the necessary identifying information for readers who might want to read the case. Whenever we would ask, we were always told that the ten or twelve characters it would take to include a court docket number, or the actual case name (plaintiff v. defendant) would be of no use to most readers and would take up valuable print column inches.
I suspect that one real reason–and more so in the case of references to blogs, podcasts, and other online sources–is the old marketing idea that you should never direct the customer away from your own site. The newspaper should give the reader all he or she needs to know–no need to look at the online sources themselves. Nothing to see here, move along.
May 1st, 2007 at 8:08 am
Clearly the newspapers understand print media and the careful allocation of limited character space. I am of the impression that they either aren’t interested in understanding new media, or haven’t figured out that there is an unlimited amount of space available on the web and that “The Web” implies an interconnectedness of all information through links.
Perhaps newspaper publishers should study Michael Corleone and his thoughts on the threat of new media on traditional media… “I keep my friends close, and my enemies closer”.
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:47 pm
Jim, same thing with science reporting, it usually blows. No citations for the reader to read the original article etc. Now most readers don’t want ot go read the original paper in Nature or Science or the Journal of Experimetnal Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, but it woudl be nice…
May 5th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
[...] Traditional print publications doing disservice to their online readers tags:Andy Kaplan Myrth, andycast, freddy, Kathi Simmons, pab, PodcastsShare and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
May 8th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Mark, this is an ongoing issue. If we’re lucky, the publication will give us a vague domain name. I think Jim Milles hits the nail on the head: traditional print pubs don’t want to “direct” away from their site.