This just in: Newspapers break news online!
Dan Gillmor rightly bemoans the fact that newspapers are still getting patted on the back for breaking news on the web -- something that is so obvious everyone should be doing it now -- after Editor & Publisher wrote up "How ‘Orlando Sentinel’ Broke Astronaut Arrest Story" online.
Yet, the sad truth is many news sites still hesitate to break news online and save it for their newspaper or broadcast.
In England, just this week the Observer's website broke an exclusive news story on a week day for the first time, reporting that dead turkeys from a factory in Hungary could be the source of a recent outbreak of bird flu in Suffolk.
So while not all news organizations are there yet, progress, at least, is being made.
Feb 11, 2007 | E-MAIL | SAVE | PRINT | PERMALINK | DISCUSS(1)
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1 comments about 'This just in: Newspapers break news online!'Yes, progress is being made -- but slowly. As long as [print] newspapers are viewed as news organizations' primary concern, with the Web as a secondary outlet, this sort of discussion will continue.
It took an explicit statment from the WSJ organization to make it clear that waiting for the next print edition wasn't the way to go:
"Value-added material will usually be sent as soon as possible—not held for the next print edition deadline—to maximize the benefit to our real-time outlets, which operate in intensely competitive spheres."
From Cathy Reynolds' 30 Nov, 2006 memo. Link: http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=12079
On the other hand, at least the memo went out...that's progress.
Posted by Whitney McNamara at February 12, 2007 9:29 AM
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