Newspapers don’t come with a manual. They never have. They’re simple, right? Maybe, but this “no need to explain” thing is turning into a problem online, and, sometimes in print.
Without a voice from the newspaper giving advice to the reader on how to use the newspaper, each reader gets to figure it out on their own. While it may have been a good thing that every reader gets to figure out how the newspaper fit in their life, these days, more people are deciding newspapers don’t.
So this is a guide about what information might go into a guide to a newspaper-dot-com site.
Here are some questions the guide would answer
- What articles appear every Monday? Tuesday? Every Wednesday?
- What kind of content is exclusive to your site, and where do I go to find it?
- What do you (the people behind the site) like most about your site’s content? What do you like in particular? Why?
- What blogs have the highest frequency of posts? What blogs are the “most useful”? Do you categorize your blogs? Do you recommend any non-newspaper blogs?
- Your columnists — how did they get their jobs? What’s their background? Why should I care?
Got any ideas for other questions?
More From Joe Murphy's Local Journalism Blog
- The April Fool’s joke we thought it better not to run on The Denver Post’s site
- How to get your local online news site off the ground, in seven steps
- A quote worth sending to the folk in your online ad department
Joe Murphy's Local Journalism Blog Recommends
- What time is the best to book a flight? 12 A.M. Eastern, apparently (Flight Blog)
- Airplanes and Pets: A guide on how to do it (Flight Blog)
- Off to a weird start (Joe, Write!)
Popularity: 49% [?]
