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Why Are Newspaper Websites So Horrible?

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Re: Why Are Newspaper Websites So Horrible?

#51

Post by CM30 »

ape4 wrote: post #40
some_random wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The news is horrible because journalists are almost never experts on whatever they're writing about, so whenever they write about something that might actually still have meaning in three weeks, they fuck it up.

They aren't experts at tech but are the best a local news, politics, crime, etc

Not sure I'd agree with that. I'm no fan of crime documentaries or political coverage, but it seems almost guaranteed that there are better sources for those things online, at least if you know where to look and how to vet whether someone's an expert.

It's just easier for people here to tell they're not experts at tech because people here are more knowledgeable about tech than they are politics or crime.

(There's also a rule/phrase for that, but I can't remember the name).

Re: Why Are Newspaper Websites So Horrible?

#52

Post by user1324345 »

pier25 wrote: post #21

I work at a educational publishing company developing interactive digital books. Everyone involved in the publishing/editorial dept. is quite frankly completely clueless about technology. Not only they don't know it works, but most importantly they couldn't care less about it. It would not surprise me the people at the helm in large newspapers don't really care about "the experience" and still think in terms of conte…

Gotta be a startup opportunity somewhere here

Re: Why Are Newspaper Websites So Horrible?

#54

Post by ryandrake »

vntok wrote: post #50
ryandrake wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still something you should be able to opt out of, or have to opt in to.

> By subscribing, you agree to the use by us and our third-party partners of technologies such as cookies to personalize content and perform analytics. Please see our Terms of Service, Digital Products Terms of Sale and Privacy Policy for more information. Well, yes, and that's an opt-in.

It's not an opt-in if it's a condition of using the service. If "by using this you agree to" is an opt-in, then the definition of opt-in is meaningless.

The "opt" stands for optional. This wording is not describing an optional feature.

Re: Why Are Newspaper Websites So Horrible?

#55

Post by SamWhited »

This is exactly what pushed me to get a Guardian subscription over a more local (U.S. based) paper (although I wish I could get the actual paper here too on more than just weekends).

Their website doesn't auto play video, I've never seen a modal, it looks okay everywhere and doesn't use too much unnecessary JavaScript that will only lead to broken menus or whatever on phones, when you have a subscription all ads go away, when you're not logged in there's no annoying paywall, and when they do ask for money it's a small banner at the bottom of articles that doesn't get in the way, doesn't cover content, etc. and to top it all off the frontend is on their GitHub account.

I wish other papers would follow this model.

Re: Why Are Newspaper Websites So Horrible?

#57

Post by dctoedt »

CM30 wrote: post #51
ape4 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't experts at tech but are the best a local news, politics, crime, etc

Not sure I'd agree with that. I'm no fan of crime documentaries or political coverage, but it seems almost guaranteed that there are better sources for those things online, at least if you know where to look and how to vet whether someone's an expert. It's just easier for people here to tell they're not experts at tech because people here are more knowledgeable about tech than they are politics or crime. (There's als…

> I'm no fan of crime documentaries or political coverage, but it seems almost guaranteed that there are better sources for those things online [1], at least if you know where to look and how to vet whether someone's an expert [2].

[1] Not sure about that — those "better sources online" tend to be the very journalists whom we're discussing, working for local media outlets.

[2] Assumes facts not in evidence — vetting of someone else's expertise is a non-trivial challenge, one that most of us neither want to do nor have the time to spend doing it.

Re: Why Are Newspaper Websites So Horrible?

#58

Post by hobs »

zebraflask wrote: post #37
samspenc wrote: post #4

I actually did some freelance website development for a local newspaper website around 15 years ago. I can't speak for larger newspapers, this was my experience with a much smaller one. The biggest challenges I found were: 1. Lack of a real technical / engineering department. Having said that, their core business is news and they really just need a functioning website, not a full (and expensive) engineering departmen…

Good points. I'd expand that by saying that these apply to any organization that wants a content-based site but has no need for a real web development team. Non-technical users often don't know what they want until they see something on the screen, and once they see it on the screen, they inevitably want to make changes that undo the first set of things they asked for. Everybody seems to have an opinion about layouts…

Often considered "bike shedding" https://phinze.github.io/2014/05/24/useful-tech-terms-part-1...

When you are working on minor details, everyone has an opinion. When you are working on major difficult things, nobody wants to weigh in.

Re: Why Are Newspaper Websites So Horrible?

#59

Post by pvg »

jccalhoun wrote: post #47
redleggedfrog wrote: post #20

Why are newspapers so horrible? My family used to get a paper newspaper when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's. It had all the regular stuff - news, local news, editorial, sports, etc. But mostly it was ads. On Sunday it was a monstrosity, being nearly unmanageable due to the number of ad inserts. Most of it you threw away without looking at. Most of the stories had no value. One day later I couldn't remember wha…

I agree. The thing that most conversations on how to get people to pay for news miss out on the most important element: the news has to be worth paying for. When I was in grad school a few years ago the college had a program to encourage newspaper readership that gave out "free" copies of the New York Times and USA Today (which we probably paid for in our tuition fees). I would pick them both up on most days and ther…

that gave out "free" copies of the New York Times and USA Today (which we probably paid for in our tuition fees). I would pick them both up on most days and there was rarely anything in either of them worth reading past the headline.

No newspaper can really overcome a combination of idle cynicism and incuriosity. Perhaps you just don't like news.

Re: Why Are Newspaper Websites So Horrible?

#60

Post by Tpsoc »

I used to work for a company as a dev that owned a few papers in various areas.

Our dev team was like any other company. You had a few senior guys that were good, some decent mid level, and one or two that did notbelong.

A few people mentioned what I saw in my short time at the company, the ad ops and sales folks came up with all these ad placements and IT had to work it in, with no regards to affects on UI.

The other thing I noticed was that the people in charge had a hard time during redesigns in removing elements that people had fought to add in the first place.

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