Making It Easy

Media organisations could encourage journalists to embrace new ways of working by making it easy for them.

For example, articles can frequently benefit from the inclusion of related links. One method of getting those links to readers would be to create a del.icio.us account and direct readers to it.

But a simpler method would be simply to input them with the story itself. This would also allow the business to make better use of them, as the links would be associated both with an individual journalist and with a specific story, as well as being stored on the organisation's own servers. (Links from a journalist's del.icio.us account can be accessed as an RSS feed but I think it would be technically difficult to associate the right links with the right stories this way).

One of the obstacles to journalists doing this is frequently the content management system they use, which may not be designed to accomplish what the media organisation is trying to do.

Media businesses should take the initiative and develop systems designed to make it easy for staff to achieve what they want them to achieve.

I also believe that, while it makes sense to use whatever applications and web services are out there for the taking, it would be a mistake to rely on them. We should deciding what we want to do and then doing it - inspired by what other people are doing, rather than depending on them.

Below is a dummy front end (for authors) of a content management system which I think would be easy to use and accomplish some of what a multimedia news organisation should be trying to accomplish.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (7)

...
written by Joanna Geary, November 05, 2008

Hiya Jon,

Totally agree with you and, I think, a lot of media organisations are moving towards incorporating just this sort of capacity into their processes.

I also agree that we should only be using those tools that can offer value to our audience and shouldn't be dictated by the tech that's out there. I think there's value in experimenting with what exists for free, but you're right that it needs to return results and the case for its value needs to be made.

One of the things I think newspapers really need is more market intelligence on how their readers are responding to new digital products.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

...
written by Joanna Geary, November 05, 2008

Oh, and nice site re-design by the way.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

...
written by Jonathan Walker, November 05, 2008

Thank you!

• 
• +0
• 
• 

...
written by dglp, November 29, 2008

Jon, part of your mockup is obscured so that I don't have an idea what kinds of functions you've included. See a screenshot here. In general I'd agree with your idea that form should follow function; that end users should inform site design rather than struggle to fit their work into poorly-suited structures.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

...
written by Jon Walker, December 01, 2008

Yes, I am looking at it now from my work comp and it looks as it does in your screenshot. It's fine on my home PC in various browsers including IE and Firefox, so not sure of the problem.

But I guess the solution is easy - I'll take a screenshot of it looking the way it should and place that in the article instead of the actual form (once I get home).

Thanks for pointing this out. Also, thanks for your other comments - you sum up the point I was trying to make pretty well!

• 
• +0
• 
• 

...
written by Jonathan Walker, December 01, 2008

It's been replaced by a jpg now - thanks again.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

...
written by Jonathan Walker, June 12, 2009

A small update on this - I've come to believe that links within the story itself are better than "related links" which would tend to go at the end or at the side of the page. Either way, the CMS needs to make it possible for journalists to add links.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

Name

Website

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Add Comment