Industry Cassandras whispered the ugly, protracted death of newspapers long before web-only publications like Slate and Salon came along. But with the print news' early competitors — radio and television — also feeling the shift in audience toward the Internet, traditional media outlets must find a way to keep up with their online brethren. Blogging, multimedia, user-generated content: The corresponding websites to many of the top local publications and stations are going for it, or, at least, trying to. Even advertising and branding firms are finding ways to better promote their own business on the web.
If you can't beat them, as they say, join them — and then top them. It's no longer enough for newspapers to simply have an online version of their publications. Newspapers are now trying to cater to readers looking for both quick-hit information (constantly updated news hits, blog links, "24-hour weather watch") and more in-depth stories (here, photo slideshows and other supplements cover what couldn't fit in limited column inches).
Websites, as WWJ radio's general manager Jeff Murri says, "give people more than just the nuts and bolts."
"Slideshows have such a tremendous amount of traffic — they really capture a lot of page impressions, and really speak to a lot of the public," says Blaine Roderique, director of emerging media at strategic design consultancy Q LTD. Both the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press in recent years has starting putting more focus on what part photos and video can play on their websites, creating specific multimedia editor positions. Roderique likes what the Ann Arbor News has done in terms of podcasting and video. "The Ann Arbor News has done a good job of recording local press events and press conferences," he said.
Roderique's background is in the newspaper industry. After graduating from college, he started at New York Times online, a website often lauded for its design as well as content, then moved to the online version of Real Simple magazine. To some writers at print publications, having your story published only online may seem like a slight — there's an unmatched satisfaction in seeing your name in print, after all. But in reality, the online version of a newspaper or magazine has the ability to reach a greater audience than its print counterpart, and thus more page views. Web-exclusive stories or supplemental content, blogs and multimedia can help traditional publications from going stale.
"[The Ann Arbor News] is making strides with Mlive, and its moves toward blogging," he says. "The Free Press is doing a pretty good job [since it was bought] by Gannett."
Radio free radio
Radio is taking advantage of the web as well. News station WWJ 950 sends out a number of weekly or daily electronic newsletters, each with different focuses and consulted experts, including folks from Crain's and Great Lakes IT.
For listeners who follow the automotive industry but can't read the dozens of publications that cover it, newsletters like Autobeat Weekly and Autotech Daily condense the information into one concise little e-package to "jumpstart the day," as WWJ general manager Rich Homberg says. "We read everything so you don't have to."
The newsletters and WWJ online tries to flesh out what a 30-second radio clip cannot.
"The priority in this building is to 'own now,' " Homberg says." The first thing about the radio station is what's now, and at every turn we want to be able to offer you more. The stuff we put on the air is universal but [a listener] may have a particular interest."
The website tries to serve the most particular reader by providing additional coverage online, whether in editorial or multimedia form.
"With the internet we try to deliver more — gather video, post the entire story," Homberg says. "We're probably not the nation's leading expert on what Britney Spears did last night, but we have 19 ways of covering the auto show. We want you to understand where Southeastern Michigan is going, where the public universities are going, how we're going to straighten out the state budget."
Room to play
Aside from more room for supplemental content, the web also allows for a little more fun. Channel FOX2 Detroit paired its on-air coverage of the Michigan primary with live coverage streaming online until polls closed. But the website also blended the informational with something that might not have fit in a regularly scheduled broadcast: Check out its "Presidential Matchmaker" quiz, for viewers to find the candidate that best fits with their personal political beliefs. (The ready-to-download "bobblehead" widgets are a nice touch.)
It's going outside the conventions of the television box that's helped FOX2 climb up in rankings.
"It's stuff like this that has helped FOX2 climb up in rankings. By the twelfth month after the FOX2 website launched," general manager Jeff Murri claims, "it had become the no. 2 most viewed television website."
And if a certain web innovation isn't working, instant feedback makes it easy to change. "The web is immediate," Murri says. "As you do these interactive campaigns, you can immediately see what resonates with the users and what doesn't."
Q LTD helps its clients maximize the appeal of their web presences, but has fun with its own, too. QLTD.com features the Q LTD jukebox, regularly updated along with its e-mail newsletters.
"[The jukebox] has been very popular — we get a lot of feedback," Roderique says. "It gives [clients] a little better connection to Q … One of the selling features of working with Q is that you're working with actual people, day in and day out."
The jukebox features song selections from various Q employees, who also have brief bio pages on the website. (Roderique's announces that he's a "wildly addicted coffee drinker," while colleague Rie Yamaoka is "an aspiring tango star.") While Q doesn't publish its own content, there are other similar companies in the region that have started to blog. Brogan and Partners, better known for its mystery vacations with employees, blogs its ideas about marketing strategies from the Geico gecko commercials to the new McDonald's coffee cup design.
But even the media outlets mentioned in this story aren't doing as much or well as they could be. Sharper web design for the primary-colors-and-big-font-heavy Detroit News and FOX2 could make for a more aesthetically pleasing cause, especially for readers/viewers expected to spend more time on the sites now with expanded media innovations.
The Ann Arbor News, although a smaller paper, has the right idea with its mLive messageboards. Watch as user-generated and user-selected content continues to gain popularity on media websites, inspired by the success of social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace and the uploading of "citizen journalist" camera-phone videos on YouTube.
A further blurring of the lines between media creator and consumer may not be that far off: The next step for his radio station, Homberg predicts, may be web-streaming audio, and eventually, choose-your-own content. Says Homberg: "Eventually ten years from now, or even five years from now, you'll be building your own WWJ."
Kimberly Chou is a freelance writer living in Ann Arbor and frequent contributor to metromode. Her previous article was Restoration = Evolution.
Photographs
iphone
courtesy photo Jeff Murri
Rich Homberg
"booblehead" widgets
Q LTD "Juke Box" Screen Capture
Photographs by Marvin Shaouni