Poynter.org is the pinnacle of online journalism, featuring original content as well as many links to the rest of the journalistic world.
Poynter's color scheme is very soothing, with a nice mix of a smooth aqua and white. The homepage is a bit busy, however, with a ton of links and a number of featured columnists -- including the likes of Bill Romenesko, Al Tompkins and Amy Gahran.
There are three navigation bars including two on the right-hand side of the homepage for new content and career and business related information. This is distracting. It is initially difficult to determine the intended hierarchy of the site.
I do like the "Centerpiece" section at the top left, with the primary piece of the day, however I wish they'd boldface the title a bit more. They use a dark green, but it's uncharacteristically dull.
In terms of writing style and use of links, I'll use Romenesko as my crash-test dummy. His column(s) is more like a list of national journalism-related headlines with short summaries of his own. It's unlike print columns in that we don't get too much opinion from Romenesko. He's basically just providing information that is likely available in other places.
He uses links well, though. Each new topic is very clearly underlined and linked in a bold brown. So while he may be unconventional in the print sense, Romenesko does a nice job using the online medium to his advantage.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Sunday, February 18, 2007
ESPN.com Uses Online Writing Skills
Online journalism skills are quite different from that of print, radio and television. ESPN.com is a site with a plethora of original journalistic content that uses many of the online skills that are discussed on Kodi Barth's website.
Jonathan Dube says online journalists have more storytelling options than any other journalists. According to Dube the options are: Print plus, clickable interactives, slideshows, audio stories, narrated slideshows, live chats and quizzes and surveys, among others. On ESPN.com's homepage alone (linked above) there are print stories, clickable interactives, audio stories and surveys. For some proof, here's one of the surveys from the homepage.
Jakob Nielsen discusses the inverted pyramid in relation to online journalism on his Web site. He says to stay away from beginning with a conclusion and surely enough, espn.com follows that format. Here's ESPN's most featured columnist, Bill Simmons, starting with a true introduction that doesn't give away the entire story. Lets the netizens do the work, well done...
Mindy McAdams, one of the foremost online journalism experts, has a list of "Tips for writing for the web." Some of her suggestions include using short paragraphs, lists, brevity and boldface. ESPN.com uses all of the above.
Here's senior baseball writer Jayson Stark using short paragraphs.
A list of NBA power rankings from basketball writer Marc Stein here.
Brevity reigns supreme in this story about an injury to New Jersey Nets forward Clifford Robinson.
Boldface can be found in the titles of nearly every story on ESPN.com as well. To put it into sports terms, they seem to be touching all the bases of good, solid online journalism. A slam dunk, so to speak.
Jonathan Dube says online journalists have more storytelling options than any other journalists. According to Dube the options are: Print plus, clickable interactives, slideshows, audio stories, narrated slideshows, live chats and quizzes and surveys, among others. On ESPN.com's homepage alone (linked above) there are print stories, clickable interactives, audio stories and surveys. For some proof, here's one of the surveys from the homepage.
Jakob Nielsen discusses the inverted pyramid in relation to online journalism on his Web site. He says to stay away from beginning with a conclusion and surely enough, espn.com follows that format. Here's ESPN's most featured columnist, Bill Simmons, starting with a true introduction that doesn't give away the entire story. Lets the netizens do the work, well done...
Mindy McAdams, one of the foremost online journalism experts, has a list of "Tips for writing for the web." Some of her suggestions include using short paragraphs, lists, brevity and boldface. ESPN.com uses all of the above.
Here's senior baseball writer Jayson Stark using short paragraphs.
A list of NBA power rankings from basketball writer Marc Stein here.
Brevity reigns supreme in this story about an injury to New Jersey Nets forward Clifford Robinson.
Boldface can be found in the titles of nearly every story on ESPN.com as well. To put it into sports terms, they seem to be touching all the bases of good, solid online journalism. A slam dunk, so to speak.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
How the Big Boys Cover Iraq
Let's begin with the Michael Jordan of newspapers, the New York Times. The homepage for the Times is leading with print stories on Iraq. They have two Iraq stories on page one and both do not offer multimedia options. However, multimedia coverage is available toward the bottom of the navigation bar on the left-hand side. If you type "Iraq" into the multimedia search bar at the top right, results will come up including slideshows and video clips.
Second in line, most would agree, is the Washington Post. On their homepage they are also leading with a print story, but only one, as opposed to the Times' two. It seems that the news superpowers are sticking with old reliable when it comes to coverage of big stories. However the Post, like the Times, has options other than print. In the upper right-hand corner of the homepage there is a link for live Washington Post radio, which offers 24/7 discussion of the war and other related issues.
The Boston Globe actually buries their online coverage of Iraq. One has to scroll down quite far on their homepage to get to the "World" news section. Once there, it's clear that the Globe is very organized and straightforward with its war correspondence. They lead with a link to a print story and follow it with audio, visual and video options in that order.
The trend continues with the Los Angeles Times, our very-own Hartford Courant and the NY "tabloid" papers, the Post and Daily News.
All of the above choose to play it safe with print stories hitting at the top of the order. It seems as if all of the major publications are reluctant to throw their audio and video coverage upfront, which is expected from all except maybe the Post and Daily News.
Perhaps one day things will change, but for now, print stories are still the cream of the crop. Multimedia is rising, but it's time off the bench is limited.
Second in line, most would agree, is the Washington Post. On their homepage they are also leading with a print story, but only one, as opposed to the Times' two. It seems that the news superpowers are sticking with old reliable when it comes to coverage of big stories. However the Post, like the Times, has options other than print. In the upper right-hand corner of the homepage there is a link for live Washington Post radio, which offers 24/7 discussion of the war and other related issues.
The Boston Globe actually buries their online coverage of Iraq. One has to scroll down quite far on their homepage to get to the "World" news section. Once there, it's clear that the Globe is very organized and straightforward with its war correspondence. They lead with a link to a print story and follow it with audio, visual and video options in that order.
The trend continues with the Los Angeles Times, our very-own Hartford Courant and the NY "tabloid" papers, the Post and Daily News.
All of the above choose to play it safe with print stories hitting at the top of the order. It seems as if all of the major publications are reluctant to throw their audio and video coverage upfront, which is expected from all except maybe the Post and Daily News.
Perhaps one day things will change, but for now, print stories are still the cream of the crop. Multimedia is rising, but it's time off the bench is limited.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Website Comments
To begin, this link takes us directly to Mindy McAdams' web design tips. Her color scheme is adequate, but the problem lies in the 3-D nature of the central box entitled "design." It appears to be popping out at the reader and instead of drawing positive attention to itself, I find it rather distracting.
Then we have Jakob Nielsen's Web site. These are his comments on the use of navigation bars, which by themselves can be very helpful. However, his page design is so plain that it becomes very montonous as I read on. He definitely needs to spice things up a little with some more color or graphics.
Webreference.com has a painfully annoying audio advertisement at the top of the page. If web pages are supposed to follow the structure of a newspaper, in that the most important information is placed at the top, then webreference.com is making a serious error here.
Websitesthatsuck.com is a very interesting and entertaining concept, but to back up such a premise, I figured it would be a beautifully designed webpage -- unfortunately not the case. It's not horrible, it's just primarily white with occasional spots of blue. The lack of color variance can be distracting at times.
Then we have Jakob Nielsen's Web site. These are his comments on the use of navigation bars, which by themselves can be very helpful. However, his page design is so plain that it becomes very montonous as I read on. He definitely needs to spice things up a little with some more color or graphics.
Webreference.com has a painfully annoying audio advertisement at the top of the page. If web pages are supposed to follow the structure of a newspaper, in that the most important information is placed at the top, then webreference.com is making a serious error here.
Websitesthatsuck.com is a very interesting and entertaining concept, but to back up such a premise, I figured it would be a beautifully designed webpage -- unfortunately not the case. It's not horrible, it's just primarily white with occasional spots of blue. The lack of color variance can be distracting at times.
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