Washington Post Reviews its 10 Years on the Web

anaesthetica writes "The Washington Post is featuring three stories today reviewing their experience in adapting the "old media" to the new environment of the web. The first article examines their revelation that 'The news, as "lecture," is giving way to the news as a "conversation".' The second looks at the 'Kaiser memo' which served as the germinating point for what would become WashingtonPost.com, phrased in language that today seems amusingly quaint. The final article looks at the death of traditional print newspapers as consumers flock to internet sources for their news."

If only they'd drop the registration

[Eevee]

I would start reading them. Instead, I keep going back to the BBC.

The rise of wire services

[NewsWatcher]

The rise of the internet news over newspaper has meant far more than just a different format for the delivery of news. It has meant that far more than in the past news is being delivered by wire services like Reuters, AP, AFP etc. This is fine as far as it goes, but as wire services can deliver news cheaply to many different sites, it makes for some pretty uniform coverage of many events. Websites can't afford to send their own reporters, so are increasingly relying on the wires to do the leg work for them. Just take a look at Google News any day of the week to see how many of the stories are exactly the same. I love reading my favourite news online, but I rue the day that great newspapers become a conduit for delivering the wires withough delving into the investigative pieces that truly change society.

Only once?

[Eevee]

That would be once for my laptop, once for my desktop system, once for my primary machine at work, once for the kiosk in the server room, twice for the kiosks in the lab...all being redone every time I clean out the cookies.

But the problem is it's not just the Post. There's all these newspapers doing it. Repeatedly, I've had people send me links to what I would assume are interesting stories...only to be hit with a registration page. If I'm not willing to put up with the hassle for my local paper, I'm sure not going to bother for the West Bumfuck Tribune out of Idaho. CNN, Fox News(1), ABC News, even MSNBC aren't doing registrations, so guess who gets my traffic.

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(1) Yeah, like I'd really follow Fox News.

Re:Only once?

[NanoGator]

"That would be once for my laptop, once for my desktop system, once for my primary machine at work, once for the kiosk in the server room, twice for the kiosks in the lab..."

It'd be once for the machine you're reading the story on. Don't be dramatic. :P

"If I'm not willing to put up with the hassle for my local paper, I'm sure not going to bother for the West Bumfuck Tribune out of Idaho. CNN, Fox News(1), ABC News, even MSNBC aren't doing registrations, so guess who gets my traffic."

Okay... so you're unwilling to type in some garbage to get through the reg page, instead preferring to go hunting for the story (if it's even there) on one of the other 4 sites that you've mentioned.

You know, I can understand some of the annoyance here. I work across 3 different machines every day. I'm not oblvious to the problems you're mentioning. But, man, I just don't understand the panty-bunching about it on Slashdot. By the time you've spent that (minimum of) 20 seconds typing that comment, you would have been in already.

Re:The rise of wire services

[demachina]

There is one overwhelming plus to internet news replacing newspapers. Manufacturing newsprint for newspapers is a single handed ecological disaster. Bowater, one of the biggest U.S. producers produced 2.7 million metric tons of newsprint in 2005. Trees the world over will breath a sigh of relief if the Internet replaces newspapers.

Now we just need to get rid of coal fired power plants to generate the electricity we need for our computers, and come up with readers that actually work as well as newspapers when you are on a subway commuting.

Re:Man what

[NewsWatcher]

As you may note from my nic, I am a more than casual consumer of the media. I have been working as a journalist for 11 years. I have worked for newspaper, wire services, websites and on radio. You are correct in saying there has been a general rise in the use of wires in news print as well. The difference is that so many internet sites want to have 24-hour coverage, which papers don't traditionally offer. The only way they can be expected to do this without costs blowing out is by utilising wire services. I think in part the rise in wire services in newspaper is because they have been putting so much of their resources into unprofitable websites that they have had to cut back on staff in the print editions. This is almost certainly the case in Australia, although I am not sure if the same has occurred in America.

Re:Only once?

[zCyl]

By the time you've spent that (minimum of) 20 seconds typing that comment, you would have been in already.

But every time someone says "Screw it" and doesn't register, their web stats will record someone who reached the registration page, but gave up before making it through to see their news and their banner ads (and any business worth its salt should be examining viewing patterns). Enough of that, and they will conform to a less annoying policy. Nearly every news article is in a few dozen sources anyway, so it's usually not worth doing it their way when I can just as easily avoid supporting an approach which annoys me.

Re:Only once?

[bheer]

Mandatory registration definitely sucks, but IMO you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

> The BBC is one of the best mainstream news sites out there and in general the idiots who think their news is worth mandatory registration for just that

The BBC can afford to do that because every UK television-owning household is paying for it -- over $250 a year IIRC. And a lot of them do chafe at what they're getting in the bargain. And if you think the BBC doesn't have an agenda, you're seriously deluded. (That doesn't mean the BBC doesn't run good stories, but that people who think 'the Beeb' is the be-all and end-all of news are unknowningly trapping themselves into the BBC's worldview without even knowing it.)

Me, I'll continue to get my news from the maximum number of sources that's feasible for me. And frankly, I do my newsreading on my laptop (why would I be looking for news in the server room at work?) so it's simply not a big deal.