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This article is part of a Media Evaluation series on the Albany Democrat-Herald for Rob Priewe's Media and Society class. Click for part one.
Previously, we examined the Albany Democrat-Herald as a physical product. Now we turn an eye towards the online incarnation. DH online offers immediacy and interactivity beyond anything print can offer. Local news is updated and expanded throughout the day and users are invited to comment on nearly page. In the age of insight, the DH is doing a commendable job of trying to become a local platform.
I believe local newspapers are important for local news coverage. Yet I rarely visit any of the Mid-Valley group's sites - they all use the same poorly designed template. The DH/Mid-Valley Group's corporate parent, Lee Publishing, owns a majority share of TownNews.com. TownNews is an online advertising consultancy for newspapers wishing to cash in on the Internet advertising boom. TownNews also offers a platform for digital publishing, the Blox Content Management System:
BLOX was built to integrate all parts of a Web site - meaning all content - stories, photos, videos, audio, calendar events, blogs, comments, classified ads, display ads, user-generated-content, PDFs, polls and many more - are treated as equal assets. This allows newspaper staffers to place any and all content in programmable, movable 'blocks.' Redesigns can be created 'on the fly,' and special editions can be built days, weeks, or even months ahead of time.The DH naturally uses Blox CMS to great effect... on ad revenues. In the print edition, advertisements were surprisingly subdued. Print ads run generally along the page base and are relatively unobtrusive. Further, there is obvious, immediate differentiation between content and advertisement.
More on page 2!
Below is a screen capture of the DH front page. Note the "Come Home for Christmas" is actually a rollover drop-down, not a huge buffer advert - unfortunately it drops down right when you try to scroll across the headlines or navigation.
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| Democrat-Herald homepage, Nov 8 2011 - Click to Enlarge |
Organization Un-Elegant
Online, we are greeted with far more intrusive advertisements. Mostly local, targeted advertisements from area business. There does not appear to be much tailoring or use of ad cookie syndication. Advertising quantity and nature detract greatly from overall presentation. Ads dominate up top - above the name of the site itself! 75% of the entire right-hand margin is advertising. Worse, text advertisements using the same font, colors and text size as content headings. This is a huge, ugly faux pas. Not only does this confuse content with advertising, it contributes to an already overly homogeneous appearance.
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| Nov 8 2011 - Click to Enlarge |
In green I have highlighted the Most Popular story section: two days of Public Safety Log and a Police Log. +1, Albany.
Viewing the entire DH page at once also highlights (ha) issue. The interface is slow to react to input and cluttered with divergent content types. Not counting graphic ads we have:
- Links to Local News
- Two different video embeds
- Links to an OSU Sports blog
- A scroll-able events calendar
- Featured Businesses
- Marketplace with Home Sales
- Most Popular links apart from the rest
- Four different search bars
- Two Flicker-esque photo streams
- Links to local blogs
- Opinion headlines/links
- Sports headlines/links
- Entertainment headlines/links
- Corporate and affliate links
Blox's theory of "equal assets" is serious. While many sites have divergent content a single page - many do so much more efficiently. If you missed it, and its not inconceivable you did (its small and hard to read), there is a navigation bar hidden beneath the ads and site title up top. What is worse, as majority owners of TownNews, Lee uses this awful template on nearly all of their forty-eight papers.
Criticism aside, there are positive aspects to the DH online. The DH Today videos by Editor Hasso Hering follow up on local stories (often on the scene!) and create great synergy between print and online. This is an excellent idea and something every local newspaper should embrace. The Things to do scrolling events calendar is well-designed and members of the community can easily make submissions online.
The focus of DH online is entirely on local news, business and events. There is no filler or syndicated content, a big advantage over the print edition. Most online articles are reprints from the paper with an added comment feature. Letters and emails to the paper are also published and available for commenting. The only drawback is the forced sign-up to comment. A huge improvement would be to adopt a system which uses OpenID or at least Google/Facebook commenting.
Reflections
In print, the DH serves well the Albany community who wish for local news and sports with a smattering of wire reports from around the world. For those who have made the leap online, local news is available and interactive, with added content and synergy. While one can hope for a better designed website, this is probably an unrealistic dream. Overall positives of the site are marred by clutter, inefficient navigation and confusing ads indistinguishable from most content. I will continue to get local news in print or from other non-Blox sources such as the Register-Guard or Oregonian.
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Conclusions
I had an interesting time examining something I read everyday without thinking much about. I don't interact with local news in the sense I write letters to Hasso or comment online. I keep current in order to know what is going on in my community and interact socially with others.
As a result of researching this series, I learned about Albany's newspaper history and discovered an excellent resource for all things Oregon at the Oregon Encyclopedia. This resource is compiled by Portland State University and features hundreds of articles about Oregon places, people and history. Stumbling on this alone is worth the fact my second page was lost to Blogger overnight and had to be retyped early this morning.
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Footnotes
1. Newspaper Association of America. Smart is the New Sexy. Campaign marketing materials under Fair Use.
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Footnotes
1. Newspaper Association of America. Smart is the New Sexy. Campaign marketing materials under Fair Use.
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