Tag Archives: Washington Post

Washington Post: Fewer copy editors, more errors – now a ‘universal desk’

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Andrew Alexander, ombudsman for the Washington Post, reflects on how a reduction in the number of copy editors (down from around 75 to 43 in three-and-a-half years) at the title has caused a peak in errors.

“Little mistakes take a huge toll on credibility,” argues Alexander.

But as the Post this week began its shift to a centralised ‘universal desk’ – intended to streamline production operations for print, online and mobile content – will the number of errors increase or will new systems emerge to deal with them?

Full article at this link…

The Washington Post and the cancelled lobbyist event

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The original Politico story:

“Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive ‘salon’ at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to ‘those powerful few’ – Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors.”

Full story at this link…

And also read about it here:

A video from Politico showing the Whitehouse press secretary Robert Gibbs answering a question about the ‘salon’:

Washington Post: WaPo and Google discussing ‘informal collaboration’

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The Washington Post’s chief executive, Donald Graham, has confirmed that the title has been holding talks with Google chief executive Eric Schmidt about a possible collaboration on new ways of presenting news.

No more specific details as yet.

Full article at this link…

Editors Weblog: Reorganisation at the Washington Post

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“A memo [via Poynter] from Washington Post editor Marcus Brauchli has revealed that the publication is reorganising, ‘in anticipation of the impending integration of our print and digital news operations’. Brauchli emphasises that the changes reflect the Post’s commitment to great reporting and journalism,” the EditorsWeblog reports.

Full story at this link…

Bivings’ top 10 US newspapers: missing the news point?

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The Bivings Group‘s recently released Bivings Report of the top 10 US newspaper sites in 2008 consisted of:

  1. New York Times
  2. Washington Post
  3. Wall Street Journal
  4. Florida Times-Union
  5. Philadelphia Inquirer
  6. USA Today
  7. St Paul Pioneer Press
  8. Atlanta Journal-Constitution
  9. Arizona Republic
  10. Columbus Dispatch

The study, which picks the list based on usability, design and web features of the US’ 100 largest newspapers, is purposefully limited to covering US-based, newspaper sites.

But as one commenter on the Bivings blog says, ‘No Mention of any of MY best news sites’ – he then goes on to list his own top 10, including Huffington Post and EveryBlock (which another commenter then takes as the Bivings’ list).

Is comparing like-for-like really that useful – newspapers aren’t just competing with each other – or other mainstream news organisations – anymore. What the Bivings Group rates the sites on may be completely different from the readers’ criteria – particularly if these comments are anything to go by.

It reminds me of this Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) study from 2007, which found a different news agenda on UGC sites than mainstream platforms (e.g the agenda decided by journalists).

Users’ online agendas are different (and that’s not to say news organisations should completely adhere to UGC inspired schedules – that’s a debate for another day) and influenced by a plethora of different online sources. As such their expectations of newspaper sites will be shaped by the other tools and information websites they use. Ranking newspaper websites against each other won’t deliver the kind of comparisons that these sites can take away and use.

paidContent.org (via Washington Post): Online newspaper revenues fall 2.9 per cent at end of 2008 – drop predicted for 2009

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According to a report from eMarketer, revenues from newspaper websites fell 2.9 per cent year-on-year in the last quarter of 2008 to $822 million.

Over the year, papers’ web revenues drop 0.4 per cent to $3.15 billion, the report suggests – a further fall of 4.7 per cent is expected in 2009.

Full story at this link…

Washingtonpost.com: First ever female managing editor at Washington Post

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Two new managing editors have been named at the Washington Post: one of them is a the first woman in the role in the paper’s history. Full story…

Washington Post using Apture for article links

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The Washington Post has teamed up with Apture to add embedded links into its news articles. Washington Post articles, video content and Google maps will be linked to using the technology, which, according to a press release, requires only a single line of code to make the links appear.

Information from WaPo’s Congressional Votes Database will be linked to congress and senate members’ names when they appear in articles, as part of the new design.

WaPo content will now be available to other media and political sites that sign up to Apture. Articles already allow readers to view who’s linking to that content in the blogosphere.

Apture’s technology has previously been used by BBC News as part of its inline links trial and its use by WaPo follows the launch of the New York Times’ link aggregation service TimesExtra last week.

NMK: Telegraph uses Dipity in aggregation first

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Speaking at New Media Knowledge’s (NMK) ‘What happens to newspapers?’ event last night, Justin Williams, assistant editor at Telegraph Media Group, drew the audience’s attention to a new aggregation feature being used in Telegraph.co.uk’s recently relaunched finance channel.

A timeline of the current global recession has been created using free third-party tool Dipity. The timeline, which can also be viewed as a map, flipbook or list, aggregates both Telegraph content and items – predominantly news articles – from other titles.

Aggregating from external sources, which in this instance include the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and CNN Money, is a first for the site, Williams said.