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.
Rob Curley 