Month: August 2007

I know I’m a little late to this party, but there have been quite a few links going around to the Bivings Report’s list of that group’s views of the Top 10 newspaper sites in the United States.

I really have to applaud some of the choices on that list.

It may not be obvious in a sea of large market and national newspaper brands, but the Knoxville News Sentinel has quietly put together one of the best local news sites in the nation. The Bivings Report talks about the site’s clean design (which is *very* nice), but it’s the site’s mixture of great content that is constantly updated that really stars in my mind.

Knoxnews.com is a killer site with incredible vision. I would go as far as to call the current version of the Knoxville site the industry standard that all other newspaper sites whose names don’t rhyme with Boo Bork Bimes and Squashington Roast should aim for.
😉

Some of the other sites on the Bivings list have me a little perplexed, and that’s more than OK because we all have different opinions about what makes something good. (And there’s more jargon on that list than what you’ll hear at an NAA conference in Orlando. And I am in no way passing judgement or making fun of that … just pointing it out.)

The newspaper sites I’d like to focus on are the ones that aren’t on the Bivings Top 10 — especially since the Bivings list only looked at the 100 biggest newspapers based upon circulation.

And the one thing I’ve learned over the last 10 years in this industry is that innovation has absolutely nothing to do with circulation. Trust me on this one.

So, not that it matters, but my personal favorite local newspaper sites are Roanoke.com, Bakersfield.com and Bakotopia.com, Knoxnews.com, lawrence.com and KUsports.com — and, no, you can’t call me a “homer” for those last two sites because there are a lot of other sites from my past that aren’t on that list.

And, though this is a little off topic, my current favorite local multimedia effort that not enough people seem to be talking about is the “Soul of Athens” project. Awesome. Just awesome.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few other local news sites that I like, and I reserve the right to add to this list at anytime.
🙂

Another interesting ranking of newspaper sites happened over at Howard Owens’ personal site. I gotta tell you that I like Howard’s list a lot.

One thing these lists reminded me of was just how much I love lists. I really love ’em. I know, I know … too much VH1 for me.

Well, I’m heading to bed. My wife has warned me about blogging while I’m medicated.

Over my last several month’s worth of presentations, I’ve been telling a lot of journalists they should join (or at least try to understand) Facebook.

This week’s cover story in Newsweek is a great overview of Facebook by Steven Levy. If you still haven’t joined Facebook, at least read this story.

Right now.

Newspapers should be concerned with how the people in their communities communicate and stay informed. That’s just one of the reasons why I think newspaper folks should try to understand and appreciate Facebook.

I would bet that in nearly every city in the United States, the fastest growing “local” site is Facebook. And, trust me, Facebook is as local as it gets. It may not always be “news” but it’s local.
🙂

Here are a couple of short excerpts from Levy’s story:

“… the Facebook experience is built around people you know, and the center of the page is a News Feed where the stories largely consist of the activities, brief status reports, photo and video postings, and comments from those you have earmarked as friends.”

…

“But even more extraordinary was the way people used it. Facebook, as it became after a name change, was permeating every aspect of campus social life. Students even came to use its messaging function instead of e-mail.”

I see the points being made in these paragraphs all of the time. More importantly, I know I personally read a lot of the links/stories/blogs that my friends post on Facebook. I’m typically interested in the things my friends are interested in.

And, as lazy as this might sound, I love that everyday when I log on to Facebook, I see if any of my friends are having birthdays. Then I send them a quick e-mail to wish them well.

I know this is simple stuff. But it’s informative and I like it. I like knowing when a friend of mine has done something cool over the weekend and posts photos of it.

I like seeing what Don Graham is reading this week.

And, obviously, a ton of other people enjoy Facebook for the same reasons.

As Levy points also out in his article, “1 million people a week are flocking to Facebook.” The article says the site grows at a rate of 3 percent a week.

Those are insane numbers. Massively huge.

Early on in the article, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg says the site “is not a social-networking site but a ‘utility,’ a tool to facilitate the information flow between users and their compatriots, family members and professional connections.”

I love that very-rehearsed sounding answer. And as a fairly regular Facebook user, I would agree with him.

There are a ton of reasons journalists should understand Facebook that have nothing to do with knowing if one of your friends is feeling well today.

Back in April, I blogged about how the Washington City Paper documented how Washington Post journalists used Facebook to find sources during the horrible Virginia Tech shootings. Here is a link to the City Paper story.

Look, if you’re a journalist and you’re really serious about the future of our industry, you at least need to be informed about how people get their information.

Read Steven Levy’s primer on Facebook and you’ll get a glimpse of how a lot of people now stay connected and informed … the things many people used to turn to newspapers to do.

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UPDATE: Last night, I got an e-mail from Phil Cauthon — who is the editor at lawrence.com — about Newsweek’s article on Facebook.

Phil is a really thoughtful and perceptive guy, and I loved working with him both in Lawrence and in Topeka. He’s sharp and a damn-fine editor, so even when we disagree on things I always respect where Phil is coming from because I know that he’s thought a lot about it.

Phil said he had tried to post a reponse to the story on Newsweek’s site, but that it hadn’t shown up yet. I asked him if I could post it on here, and he said that was fine.

It definitely gives a different point of view on the Newsweek article, but also on Facebook.

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>
Is this Journalism or an advertorial? Aside from the article’s tone—which reads more like boosterism than a critical look at the Facebook phenomenon—it not-so-deftly brushes aside perhaps the most fundamental concern of any social networking site in the third to last graf: Privacy.

A red herring (having more to do with usability than privacy) is offered in place of, say, a critical look at what is done (or expressly not done) with all this data stored in Facebook’s databases: all the demographic info, personal info, deepest secrets, private photos and videos, etc. etc.—all of which is likely posted with only the users’ friends and family in mind, not in this spirit:

“We may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship.” (from Facebook’s “privacy” policy)

Instead of practicing Journalism, Newsweek has published a feel-good fluff piece that Facebook ownership couldn’t have paid enough for were it presented as it should have been: Advertising.

Fact is, social networking is a savvy means of identifying and selling data on consumers. No doubt Zuckerberg did not enter this venture for that reason, but that does not change the reality of why (to a significant degree, at least) his creation is worth billions to investors. Zuckerberg may well rigidly adhere to the highest code of responsibility to the internet community his work fostered, but inevitably, some day, all the data Facebook has collected will be owned by a Murdoch—and all the people who use this site with the same spirit that this article cheerleads will likewise be owned. The direct marketing fallout is potentially just a mere annoyance compared to much more grave implications (Patriot Act anyone?).

One has to wonder: Is Newsweek primarily concerned with riding the coattails of the next big trend or going beyond the hype to inform its readers about the potential pitfalls of jumping in head-first? This article suggests the former …

Phil Cauthon, editor
lawrence.com
desk: 785-832-7270
645 New Hampshire
Lawrence, KS 66044

I’m always surprised at how the questions and phone calls I get kind of come in waves of specific topics.

The topic that it seems I’m getting asked the most about right now is “will I share our job descriptions?”

That’s a hard one for me because if you ask those who have worked with me, we really don’t have set job descriptions and I’m not sure I’ve ever really told someone what exactly his or her job is.

But when I came to Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, all of the positions that were going to be on our new products team had to be posted, so some sort of job descriptions had to be written for the job postings. I wanted these job postings to have a certain attitude, and our HR director at WPNI also wanted to make sure the postings had the correct tone for our company.

There was a fair amount of compromise on both sides (and all you have to do is read this post for our summer interns to see why), but I’m still fairly happy with what we came up with.

I’m not going to post all of the job descriptions and postings we put together. Instead, I thought I would post the job descriptions for our team’s main editor/producer and the posting for our team’s programmer.

BTW — these jobs have long been filled. I’m only posting them here so that others can see what we were looking for.

I also think it’s interesting to compare the more formal job description of the editor’s position that you see below with the blog posting that I wrote about what our online managing editor’s duties were when we were in Naples, Lawrence and Topeka.

Anyway, here goes …

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Multiplatform Editor/Producer

Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive is looking for a Multiplatform Editor/Producer to join our new team aimed at the rapid development of online content, tools and strategies. This Editor will work with a small collaborative team built lean and nimble.

This is a senior level position accountable for conceiving, producing and readying multimedia features, including text, audio, video and still images, either within online sites or for emerging technologies such as wireless media and downloadable audio, video or audio-visual broadcasts.

The ideal candidate will have an extensive and solid new media journalism background. You will be presenting multimedia in a variety of formats, helping manage day-to-day project activities from an editorial standpoint, and working quickly and effectively on multiple projects from beginning to completion.

You must be at ease working both as part of a team and independently. You must have impeccable attention to detail, so that we can trust you to produce excellent work without close supervision.

The Multiplatform Editor/Producer will be focused on creating and overseeing the creation of content on any and all of WPNI’s publications (washingtonpost.com, slate.com, budgettravelonline.com, and newsweek.com), both at the production and management levels. You will be able to help generate ideas for projects, make sure other members of the team are staying on task and help to make sure deadlines are met.

You will play a substantial role in the journalism aspects of these projects, gathering information and writing stories. It is therefore essential that you be able to write clean copy without much need for editing. The ideal candidate will have strong knowledge of Associated Press style and the ability to write well for different platforms.

You also must have the experience, knowledge and ability to work within the standard operating procedures of a traditional newsroom in a way that helps support all of the companies’ media strategies. It is imperative that you be able to handle pressure and stress with grace and diplomacy.

Necessary skills include, but are not limited to:
— HTML;
— General multimedia editing (Photoshop, iMovie/Final Cut,Audacity/Audition/SoundEdit);
— General computing (text editors, spreadsheets, FTP, etc.); and
— The ability to write clean copy.

Typically, the Multiplatform Editor/Producer also will have five or more years experience, strong leadership skills and strong subject matter and technical expertise.

We embrace a highly creative, non-traditional work environment. We love to work fast and have fun, with the time between having a great idea and that idea being added to one of our sites being measured in days, if not hours. So, if you learn things quickly, want to spend time with talented and imaginative people and build amazing Web content, then this is the place for you.

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Lead Programmer

Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive is looking for a Lead Programmer to join our new team aimed at the rapid development of online content, tools and strategies. This Lead Programmer will work with a small collaborative team built lean and nimble.

We will build Web sites that embrace relational databases in ways they’ve rarely been used, coupled with broadband-centric multimedia content that all works together in a platform-independent manner. Think Internet-based applications that cross from computers to mobile phones to iPods to Sony PSPs, and you’re beginning to get the picture. And that’s really just scratching the surface of possibilities.

We’re big believers in and contributors to the open-source community. Our primary development platform is Python (mod_python) and PostgreSQL, with a particular emphasis on using the Django Web framework. Our Lead Programmer should be fluent in these technologies, but experience with the complete Web stack — (X)HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Apache, etc… — is expected. The ideal candidate will also share our vision to build sites and applications that have an impact on real users at both the local and national level.

You must be at ease working both as part of a team and independently. You must have impeccable attention to detail, so that we can trust you to produce excellent work without close supervision.

This is a very senior level software engineer that may, as required, lead projects. The ideal candidate will have high-level abilities in software design and architecture and a strong grasp of software and system interrelationships.

Our Lead Programmer must be able to set the technical “vision” and design specifications of assigned projects and serves as lead engineer in implementation. This person will be relied upon to solve highly complex problems and to develop programs and systems that have little to no precedent.

Typically, the Lead Programmer will have five or more years experience.

We embrace a highly creative, non-traditional work environment. We love to work fast and have fun, with the time between having a great idea and that idea being added to one of our sites being measured in days, if not hours. So, if you learn things quickly, want to spend time with talented and imaginative people and build amazing Web content, then this is the place for you.