Last Updated: October 01, 1996
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Finding ways to be relevant to online audiences is a greater challenge to newspapers than mastering the technology. And the greatest challenge for both newspapers and online services still is getting people to turn off their television sets.
"(Today's) web pages are not jazzy newspapers but crappy television," said Microsoft Network Senior Editor John Callan during the Lessons of New Media session. "The Microsoft Network has a lot of journalists doing a great job and no one's seeing it. Everyone's watching TV."
Callan said online services need to "get those eyeballs online," possibly by following Microsoft's lead and forming partnerships with television networks.
"We need to look at how to do unique story-telling online," providing links to databases, for example, and letting users customize their information.
Callan also said newspapers' role in the future will be to focus solely on community issues.
Steve Yelvington, editor/ manager of Star Tribune Online in Minneapolis, echoing Callan's belief that technology is not as critical as unique content, stressed relevancy. Newspaper online services provide opportunities to perform "our true role of connecting people by creating spaces where people can come together and interact," he said.
Yelvington also noted that classified and real estate information is often more popular among his online subscribers than news.
Newspapers that are publishing online do so in a variety of ways, from the New York Times approach of "looking like a pretty traditional newspaper on the Web" to New Jersey Online, whose content "with an attitude" comes mainly from the Newark Star-Ledger and which has a "different personality" than the paper, said Howard Weaver, assistant to the president for new media strategies at McClatchy Newspapers.
Weaver also pointed to the Bedford Times in Indiana, which is not updated daily but as great local sports information.
"The lesson is to play to your own strengths," he said.
Shearer is co-director and editor of Medill News Service.
