This evening at 6 PM, we updated the header files for washingtonpost.com to remove the logo that’s been a mark of the website since its launch, and bring in the Old English-style Washington Post logo from the newspaper:
I’ll be honest, I have mixed feelings about this. Obviously, it makes sense to unify the branding between the paper and its website, but at the same time, a) the logo looks awkward against the current design background of the site, and b) we received the announcement regarding the change at 2:15 this afternoon - kind of short notice for such a dramatic change. Combined with the forthcoming newsroom merger, it feels like a little bit of the culture of the web house has been lost. I’m sure eventually I won’t even notice, but I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for the black and red. (Plus, we have a boatload of merchandise with the wrong logo now!)
How’s this for a disturbing reminder of how hard it is for newspapers to manage costs: Silicon Valley Insider did some back-of-the-napkin math based on published figures by the New York Times and came to the conclusion that printing and distributing the newspaper costs twice as much as buying every subscriber a Kindle instead.
Are we trying to say the the New York Times should force all its print subscribers onto the Kindle or else? No. That would kill ad revenues and also, not everyone loves the Kindle.
What we’re trying to say is that as a technology for delivering the news, newsprint isn’t just expensive and inefficient; it’s laughably so.
Prediction: 2009 isn’t going to be any easier on the newspaper industry than 2008 was.
Catching up on some media-type stuff from earlier this month, there’s a couple of interesting back-and-forth pieces over at the Online Journalism Review between OJR contributor Tom Grubisich and washingtonpost.com’s Jonathan Krim on whether newspapers should be doing more to build relationships between themselves and their community. It started with Grubisich’s post from January 7th wherein he tackles the Post’s recent strategy announcements and their perceived lack of emphasis on engagement:
[Post publisher Katherine] Weymouth details what the Post will do about utility (”make the paper and washingtonpost.com go-to places for local information”) and convenience (”make it possible for [local consumers] to complete many… transactions on the site”). But nowhere does Weymouth expand on how the Post will promote engagement.
How odd – and disturbing. It’s great that the Post will work ever harder to help its readers and users find movie listings and streamline their shopping. But what, if anything, does it plan to do about helping to turn them into a community that can make the District of Columbia and its suburbs – home to many of them – better places to live?
Grubisich went on to say that one of the reasons the Post fails to properly connect with readers is the use of anonymous comments on washingtonpost.com stories and features. He felt the lack of accountability lessens the sense of community vs. a site like FaceBook, where everyone basically identifies themselves as, well, themselves.
Krim and former washingtonpost.com editor Russ Walker responded in the comments, pointing out that the site has done several commendable things to promote greater awareness of the underlying issues behind a story (see the link for all the examples).
Grubisich later wrote a response post, taking up the topic of how the site handled the recent “Fixing D.C.’s Schools” series that Krim brought up in the comments of the previous article. Again, there was some great back-and-forth discussion on what it means to be a reporter of information vs. a community-building force for action.
The reason these posts and the conversation they generated interest me is that I sort of wonder if they’re both going about this the wrong way: does it really make sense for the Post to invest a huge amount of resources in building a FaceBook-like community for its readers, or would we be better off just partnering with FaceBook directly? It’s pretty clear that FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and the like are as well-established as social media is likely to get for 2009. Instead of drawing people away from the communities they’ve already formed there, should we be doing more to send information their way and let them integrate it into their existing worlds?
There’s a risk there, of alienating the very people you’re trying to reach—how dare these old-school journalists try to impose their imperialist ways on us new-frontier types and so on. Plus, how do you send your content out into the world and still maintain editorial credibility (stop giggling) over it, not to mention making money from it?
As Krim pointed out, the Post has a very active community built up around the OnFaith and PostGlobal sites. Should we have steered them into a pre-existing community instead?
Obviously, I don’t have the answers or else I’d be running the company instead of making sure the site works. Okay, I’d probably be paying someone else to run the company, since I hate the thought of being a CEO. The point is, this is one of several issues that the Post and other newspapers are facing as they try to figure out how to evolve. Although it probably doesn’t mean anything for the immediate future, I do think it’s not insignificant that FaceBook welcomed a new board member late last year.
disclaimer time: I almost ended up as a freelance writer of sorts under Russ when he worked at WPNI; I’ve met Jonathan once when I helped him with a USB drive a couple of years ago; I wouldn’t know Tom if I bumped into him on the street.
With an ever-increasing number of professional journalists finding themselves out of work or under siege from employer cutbacks, it’s a relief to learn that Samuel Wurzelbacher has arrived in Sderot, Israel, to finally show all those elitist media types how real reporting is done.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” he told foreign reporters.
“You should be patriotic, protect your family and children, not report like you have been doing for the past two weeks since this war has started,” he said.
I’m of course in favor of citizen journalism, and I basically have no real stake in the specific conflict at hand (religious quarrels always made about as much sense to me as using jello for a doorstop), but come on. This is the best Pajamas Media could do? Really? This guy? Wow.
Okay, there’s a lot of catching up to do. Well, maybe not that much. But definitely some. In no particular order:
Some of you with entirely-too-long attention spans might remember that back in 2007, I talked about a missed job opportunity at work, and how I was fine with the decision because I thought something else would open up eventually. As it turned out, another team member left shortly after I made that post, and I decided to give the process another shot. Long story short, that’s more or less what I’ve been doing for the last seventeen months or so. By the way, that new hire turned out pretty well, I dare say.
Unfortunately, I was right about the ramp-up; it was pretty difficult at first, and I made a lot of stupid mistakes along the way, although thankfully nothing serious enough to bring down the site or anything like that. (Okay, I did accidentally knock LoudounExtra.com off the air for about 15 minutes while moving a server at the offsite data center, but that’s another story.) Fortunately, I work with patient people and have managed to get to the point where I’m doing much more good than harm. I’m no guru, but at least I have a shot at it. I still hang out in Express’s newsroom from time to time, but happily we hired an extremely good Mac tech to take over for them, so they’re in excellent hands.
Of course, these days I’m frequently grateful just to have a job, let alone one I enjoy—not that I shouldn’t be a little nervous about it. As a result of the absolute beatdown that the media world suffered last year in the markets, my erstwhile employer is implementing a few changes for the coming year, one of which involves bringing the two editorial groups from Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive (which, by the way, became Washington Post Digital on Thursday) in Arlington, VA, and The Washington Post newspaper in downtown DC. As a result, we in the Technology department are also relocating, although at press time we still aren’t certain if we’re moving downtown (that’s the Post building at 15th and L in DC on the left there, the brownish building in the center of the pic) or to an offsite data center. Our chief poobah Katharine Weymouth and new executive editor Marcus “rhymes with the veggie” Brauchli have explained to us their plans for keeping the company sound over the next few years; they make sense and do sound promising. At least more so than, say, the Tribune’s plans, which mostly appear to involve grabbing as much copper wire and office supplies as you can before leaving the building.
Back when times were happier and bunnies and kittens roamed the market floors singing songs and showering traders with gumdrops—you know, October 2007 or so—I bought a car. There was nothing wrong with the (now fully paid off) WRX, mind you; in fact, it’s now Perri’s car, a substantial upgrade over her 1993 Subaru Loyale—90 hp and passive seat belts, talk about safety! I had just been longing for one of these for some time, and finally couldn’t resist any longer. That’s actually the color combo of mine in the picture on the Edmunds link. It was not all that pleasant an experience to actually purchase, at least not until I went to the same dealer family that sold us the WRX (that’s Fitzgerald, for the record) who were the complete opposite. Should have gone there first! It’s been an absolute joy to own, even in these cold and dark times, literally and figuratively. It’s fun to drive, handles like a dream, stops on a dime, and didn’t require selling a kidney to afford. As a side bonus, I regularly top 30+ MPG on the commute according to the ScanGauge I picked up for it, as shown. On that score, at least, life is damned near perfect. At least until Perri gets a job and I can somehow talk her into taking the Miata, keeping the WRX for a winter/practical car, and letting me take on a 370Z…
Oh yeah, did I mention that Perri left her job as a HR generalist at Georgetown University Medical Center? Not against her will, mind you, unlike so many others last year. In her case, it was simply giving her too much stress. How much? Bleeding-ulcer level as it turns out, something we only discovered while she was vacationing by herself in Vermont. She spend three-fifths of her time in the hospital, although thankfully she did not require anything more than some iron supplements, a transfusion or two, and for me to fly up to Albany to meet her and drive her home. Since her father also required a brief hospital visit earlier in the year (unrelated, and his turned out fine—at 82, he’s healthier than either of us), that left me as the only household member to escape. Well, there’s always this year, right? Anyway, she’s browsing around for work now, although oddly enough, a number of employers don’t seem to be in a hiring mood.
I think that’s the highlights, at least for now. Like I said, I’m hoping to do more this year than last as far as the site goes (I have a new WordPress theme in mind, among other things), so we’ll see how well that works out.
Sigh. Well, it’s been another questionable year, and as you can clearly see by the vast number of posts I’ve made here, something of a wasted one as well. Basically, from around June through pretty much today (and continuing into the new year), I’ve been extraordinarily busy with work between election stuff, helping to launch new sites, and now preparing for 2009’s planned move downtown (work, not me, and I’ll have plenty to say about that topic I’m sure).
On top of that, the world is all topsy-turvy with historic Presidential fodder and mind-blowingly bad economic decisions and the usual in-between stuff. Frankly, the whole thing can’t end soon enough for my tastes.
That said, I do plan to try and come back here again. I’ve really let my writing drop off (as in, to nothing) and managed to pretty much ignore the outside world for some time now. I’m honestly hoping I can change that in 2009. We’ll see.
Meanwhile, tell 2008 to get lost. I’m going to bed.
