I was curious about what was happening in Iran this morning in the wake of this weekend’s massive protests over the disputed election results. So I logged on and went to NYTimes.com. The lead story carried a Tehran dateline, the byline of two Times reporters, and news that, for the most part, was several hours old (although it appeared to have been fairly recently re-topped).
The off-lead, below a photo, was a “news analysis” piece by Times executive editor Bill Keller and another reporter, also datelined Tehran and pushing a conclusion about the election’s outcome–that incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had emerged with a stronger hand than before–that, while perhaps reasonable on Saturday was by early Monday clearly worth a second thought.
I’ve spent 20 years writing for daily, weekly and monthly publications (albeit not as a foregin correspondent), and the last few years writing for the Web, so I know something about what it takes to turn a fact-checked and edited story around. And within those constraints, the Times reporters and editors were doing a fairly decent job keeping up with the fast-moving events. But overall, NYTimes.com was blowing it, and for the worst possible reasons.
A Web site is not–or should not be–simply a newspaper without paper. It’s a tool. I came to NYTimes.com looking for the latest out of Tehran. I didn’t demand, or even expect, that the Times own reporters would have the most current story ready. But I expected the NYTimes.com to help me find it. And it let me down.
Oddly, the Times had some what I was looking for in place, but the Web site buried it so I didn’t see it right away. The Times news blog The Lede, edited by Robert Mackey, was doing a pretty decent job of filtering and pointing to relevant updates from around the Web as well as the Times‘ own reporters on the ground.
Why wasn’t that pulled out from behind the home page and made the online lede? That’s what people turn to the Web for with fast-breaking stories. The Times could have made itself far-more valuable to me by helping me find the information I was looking for instead of showcasing its own, “exclusive” content.
For that matter, where was the #IranElection Twitter widget? Why wasn’t that out front as well? I know the information on Twitter has not been verified by the Times editors, but that’s OK. I’m capable of making that distinction.
Where was the Flicker widget with photos from Tehran? Where was Google Earth? Where was the search box to help me find more informaton on Iranian politics?
It’s very hard for those of us with a few bylines under our belts to let go of the idea of exclusivity. We were raised and trained to get it first, get it right, get it out. So long as the choice of news sources most reader had was limited, and it took competitors a fair amount of time to folo your story, that mantra made sense, both journalistically and economically. But those conditions don’t obtain on the Web. And thus the devotion to exclusive content does not make sense, either journalistically or economically, on the Web.
Most Web news consumers are not looking for and do not particularly value exclusive content. They’re searching for information and they’re generally capable of making distinctions as to its source. It’s frankly patronizing for news organizations to treat readers as if they can’t.
Not to mention self-defeating. Insisting on using exclusive and proprietary content online means your giving away more content than you need to be for free.
There is a place–and I hope there always will be–for thoroughly reported, well-edited journalism. But a Web site home page isn’t necessarily it. A Web site is (or should be) a tool, to help me find relevant information, from a variety of sources. Help me do that and I’ll come back. Force me to go elsewhere and I may not.