Now that I split much of my day between working on the print edition and online, where this blog appears, I am often asked about the differences between the two.
Our Web site “solves” two huge logistical problems print people struggle with every day.
First, we print and distribute the newspaper once each day. But news does not stop. It is now a 24-hour operation. We now are capable of doing the same online. We break stories online, sometimes with only a few sentences, then develop and update them through the day. That is something we can’t do with print. The fact is readers now decide pretty much on their own when they want their news. We are reacting to that.
Second is the fact that every day we are limited in print by the size of the newspaper. Some of the toughest questions I face each day are not which stories are going to get in the paper. Those decisions usually pretty much take care of themselves.
My biggest problems each day are all the stories that are not going to get into the newspaper. That problem disappears online. We are limited only by how fast we can shovel the information out there.
But neither of these two key issues are actually my favorite thing about the Internet.
This is. Suppose (and I know this would never happen) we have a bad typo in our lead headline.
In print, that’s a major problem. Online, while a problem, it’s a temporary one. Because with a few keystrokes – Voila! – the problem is fixed. I can change anything that appears on the site. I can add information. As we get updates, I can add that material to our online reporting. And yes, I can even fix mistakes.
Print, on the other hand, and as I am constantly reminding the staff, is FOREVER! Once the newspaper leaves the building, it is out of our hands.
As someone who works more and more online, I can admit that there is an inherent danger built into this process. There is the constant lure of being tempted by speed, to get the information out there as fast as we can, without taking the same care to be sure it is as accurate as we would like.
That is because, to my way of thinking, in the back of our minds we know that regardless of what winds up on the Web site, it can be changed in the blink of an eye. Not so with print. I am constantly reminding myself to throttle back just a bit when I’m working online.
I’m thinking maybe the folks at the Major League Baseball Web site likely would concur with me on this issue.
Monday night, with the Dodgers set to drive the final nail into the Phils and even the National League Championship Series at 2-2, they published an item on their Web site that said in fact that had in fact happened.
Of course we all know what happened next. The Phils rallied, with Jimmy Rollins smoking a heart-stopping double into the gap to score two runs and cap a spine-tingling rally as the Phils won, 5-4.
Spine-tingling is likely not what that person at MLB.com was feeling at the time. The story was quickly pulled from the site.
I know exactly how he feels.
Our Web site “solves” two huge logistical problems print people struggle with every day.
First, we print and distribute the newspaper once each day. But news does not stop. It is now a 24-hour operation. We now are capable of doing the same online. We break stories online, sometimes with only a few sentences, then develop and update them through the day. That is something we can’t do with print. The fact is readers now decide pretty much on their own when they want their news. We are reacting to that.
Second is the fact that every day we are limited in print by the size of the newspaper. Some of the toughest questions I face each day are not which stories are going to get in the paper. Those decisions usually pretty much take care of themselves.
My biggest problems each day are all the stories that are not going to get into the newspaper. That problem disappears online. We are limited only by how fast we can shovel the information out there.
But neither of these two key issues are actually my favorite thing about the Internet.
This is. Suppose (and I know this would never happen) we have a bad typo in our lead headline.
In print, that’s a major problem. Online, while a problem, it’s a temporary one. Because with a few keystrokes – Voila! – the problem is fixed. I can change anything that appears on the site. I can add information. As we get updates, I can add that material to our online reporting. And yes, I can even fix mistakes.
Print, on the other hand, and as I am constantly reminding the staff, is FOREVER! Once the newspaper leaves the building, it is out of our hands.
As someone who works more and more online, I can admit that there is an inherent danger built into this process. There is the constant lure of being tempted by speed, to get the information out there as fast as we can, without taking the same care to be sure it is as accurate as we would like.
That is because, to my way of thinking, in the back of our minds we know that regardless of what winds up on the Web site, it can be changed in the blink of an eye. Not so with print. I am constantly reminding myself to throttle back just a bit when I’m working online.
I’m thinking maybe the folks at the Major League Baseball Web site likely would concur with me on this issue.
Monday night, with the Dodgers set to drive the final nail into the Phils and even the National League Championship Series at 2-2, they published an item on their Web site that said in fact that had in fact happened.
Of course we all know what happened next. The Phils rallied, with Jimmy Rollins smoking a heart-stopping double into the gap to score two runs and cap a spine-tingling rally as the Phils won, 5-4.
Spine-tingling is likely not what that person at MLB.com was feeling at the time. The story was quickly pulled from the site.
I know exactly how he feels.
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