The Cole Digest, January 10, 1996

We're with Nora Paul of the Poynter Institute, who is talking about the aspects of re-engineering the newspaper to be able to handle new media and on-line efforts. Here are her first points:

RETHINKING REPORTING
In a 1994 speech, Los Angeles Times Editor Shelby Coffey answered the question, "Will newspapers survive the shift to new media?" with these words: "They'll succeed because they understand the key transformation of turning information into readily graspable knowledge."

He's right, sort of. While reporters have always been good at turning information into useful knowledge, they aren't rethinking how reporting could be done in this radically different medium.

SHOVELWARE
The old news product is linear, but this new technology uses hypertext, so a user can jump from point to point. Too many electronic news products are simply shovelware -- scooping up the old flat text used in the ink-on-paper product and throwing it on the screen, in familiar linear fashion.

We have to rethink reporting as a layering of news. News reporting for new products will have content with depth, not just by providing explanation (as has always been the reporter's strength) but by providing links to relevant documents.

Finding these relevant documents and providing links within the text of the story will be part of the reporter's job (or, perhaps, the job of a new category of worker in the interactive products newsroom).

There may be some entirely new models for what we call the news story. Imagine this: Instead of having a news story on the president's speech, the text of the speech is displayed. Embedded in the text are links which explain the event alluded to, or the history of the proposal mentioned, or compares his position on the topic as stated in previous addresses, or gives a brief bio on the person mentioned, and why they were mentioned.

I call this annotative journalism. This approach takes advantage of the technology to do a different kind of reporting, and provides a value-added feature over the other thousands of content providers who also will make the speech's text available.

THE BOTTOMLESS NEWSHOLE
The newspaper's limited newshole is the bane of reporters and editors, but it also is a great aid in making content decisions. Space allocation is based on the relative merit of one news story against another.

What happens to the new electronic news product without that limitation? How will the electronic editors make decisions about what goes in? Or, since there is no space problem, does everything go in?

Here are some questions you should be asking yourself as you make content decisions for the electronic product:

How much of the print product will you put on the electronic service -- all, some, none?

Will things that didn't go into the print product, because of that dreaded newshole, go in the electronic product?

Does the print product's content represent 10 percent of the electronic service's content? Fifty percent? Eighty percent?

While those questions are quantitative, there are also some key qualitative questions you should ask:

Are there features your electronic product customer would be interested in that you would not offer to the print customer?

What is there in your traditional circulation area that you could focus on, that would give your information service a unique and identifiable content?

How can you take advantage of the medium to do something new, fun, different than what you could do on paper?

So many of the information products have the same content and coverage, the same wires available. Your task is to develop a content mission that gives your service a unique identity.

Next week: true multimedia.

Onward.

\dmc

[THE COLE DIGEST is written by consultant David M. Cole, editor and publisher of the industry newsletter THE COLE PAPERS. The DIGEST is made available to PressLink subscribers every Wednesday at no extra charge. Send comments by e-mail to cole@plink.geis.com. The COLE DIGEST is the property of The Cole Group, a California sole proprietorship. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of The Cole Group is prohibited. Copyright (C) 1996, The Cole Group. Opinions expressed are those of The Cole Group, unless otherwise noted.

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