garciamedia

Jul. 25th Your news, your way in Australia

Print versus online. We see it on blogs, read about it in trade publications and hear about it in countless seminars around the world. It’s what has many print people losing sleep and many online people growing frustrated.

By the very nature of the term - print versus online - we pit two mediums against each other, make one worry about the other and begin predicting who will come out on top. It’s in this environment that we welcome a client like Shepparton News from Shepparton, Australia.

From our very first meeting it was clear that this project was not about the print or the online vehicles of Shepparton News. Instead, it was about the readers and creating an experience in print and online that would serve them best. There was never any talk of doing the print project first, then the online. From the very beginning it was about developing a process for the appropriate medium that let readers, who are busy with never-ending demands on their time, get the news they wanted, when they wanted it.

So what did it take to accomplish this? First, there was no hesitation on the part of the leadership of the organization to make this happen. Ross McPherson, the publisher, completely understood how the media landscape had evolved and he knew his readers. Fiona Rankine, editor, and Jo Breen managing editor, also embraced this notion of putting the readers first and made sure the newsroom was prepared to make whatever adjustments were necessary in their workflow to improve their products.

“Your news, your way” became the mantra for the project - a baseline of thinking for every decision that would be made, administratively, editorially and visually. What this meant for the print product was keeping the favorite sections, but adding even more local news and sports, creating a new lifestyle section with more relevant content, like gardening, pets, recipes and handy home hints. Finally, and most importantly, the new print design and strategy offered readers more chances to have a say in what they would like to see in the paper.

Our early conversations in this project were less about how the print would translate to online and more about how the online product could strengthen the print product. It became our mission to do more than jut create a web site that would look good and be easy to navigate, we wanted to use the medium of the internet to give readers a voice - to make them part of the process and let them participate. On the Shepparton News web site (http://www.sheppnews.com.au) readers can get breaking news and read about what’s going on in their community, but they can also post photos, contribute news and blogs, take part in the polls and have their say on just about anything.

It’s this reader participation that I believe creates the bridge between print and online. In this Web 2.0 era where the best things on the internet come from the creative collective thoughts of users it makes sense that a newspaper see its online counterpart as an ally not a foe. Shepparton News dispels any notion of print versus online and creates a reader experience like no other.

The best testament of this comes in the form on an email I received from Darren Linton, the online editor, when I asked what the response to the new design and site have been:

“The best gauge at the moment of the impact of the new site is WHO is ‘engaging’ with the site. We have new bloggers who did not previously participate. We have new people uploading reader pictures who did not previously engage with the website. We have people commenting on stories, blogs etc who did not previously interact. We have gone from a limited conversation between the same 10 people to a much bigger conversation with more varied and interesting topics.“

By focusing on what Darren describes above, “a bigger conversation” with readers, we as storytellers and information providers are creating a better overall experience as well as helping shape the evolution of online journalism.

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Posted by Mario Garcia, Jr. on July 25, 2007