Tag Archives: newspaper websites

Star redesign: I don’t hate it

October 13, 2009 – 2:19 am| Posted in Media, Web design

After inexplicably hyping it for weeks, the Toronto Star finally unveiled its website redesign last week. I took one look at it and was unimpressed, but figured I'd return for a closer look.

Toronto Star's thestar.com

Toronto Star's thestar.com

Colour me more impressed.

I'm still not crazy about the visual design, which is filled with rounded corners, blue-grey gradients and just about every other Web 2.0 cliché in the books, but some of the functionality is worth noting.

One is the topic pages. News organizations have to get used to the fact that the Internet provides them with a different way to present information. Background doesn't have to be repeated in every newspaper article to re-educate the reader. Instead, you can simply link to a previous article in a series, or better yet to a summary of the topic so far (kind of like what you'd see on a Wikipedia page). Many topics have short introductions followed by a list of articles on that topic. It's simple, but very useful. The best part is the "hot topics" banner at the top of the page, which allows quick links to the big issues of the day.

Another is the timeline view, which translates as "everything published on this website, in reverse chronological order." If you don't know what you want to read, go here and just read whatever is new. There are other views like the "visual news" view, which presents stories as a series of pictures, but that's only useful if all stories lend themselves to good pictures. Many don't and are illustrated with boring file art instead, lessening the usefulness of this page.

Text in these boxes don't have enough ...

Text in these boxes don't have enough ...

More from teehan+lax, Torontoist and the Star itself.

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Globeandmail.com redesigned, broken

May 21, 2009 – 2:00 pm| Posted in Media, Web design
The new Globe and Mail website

The new Globe and Mail website

In case you haven't noticed already, the Globe and Mail redesigned its website this week.

The site is excessively slow right now, which I assume is only temporary, but still quite embarrassing.

As if to underscore how little has actually changed, the video introduction by Edward Greenspon (which I can't embed here but looks like it was shot in a basement in the 80s) talks a lot about how great the website has been doing but very little about what's actually changing, beyond the "new nav bar" (exciting!)

The old globeandmail.com

The old globeandmail.com

Among the changes from the old site:

  • URLs lose their /servlet/story/RTGAM.../BNStory/home nonsense, replaced by search-engine-friendly URLs like this one that are based on the headline. This change will probably make the most difference for traffic reaching the site.
  • After going overboard on the grey in their last layout, it's much less prominent here in favour of black and red (making it look a bit Maclean's-ish).
  • Speaking of colours, each major section is colour-coordinated, including a rather garish purple for Globe Life.
  • Gone is Trebuchet MS, replaced by serifed Georgia for headlines.
  • The story pages are much cleaner and less cluttered, but for some reason photos are limited to 360 pixels wide.
  • No more page showing articles that were in that day's print edition, supposedly because they're all found in their respective sections now and don't need their own page.

But the most pretentious change is the name: It's being rebranded from "globeandmail.com" to "The Globe and Mail", because, Greenspon says, "it is the Globe and Mail and everything is integrated". I can see the point (even if every newspaper says that and subsequently ignores it by spending 90% of its effort on the print edition's front page), except Greenspon keeps referring to it as "globeandmail.com" and the video ends with the old brand.

Overall, I think it's a positive change, if a bit over-hyped.

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Cyberpresse is hit-and-miss for video

April 10, 2009 – 11:59 pm| Posted in Media, Slow News Day, Video, Web design

We're in the middle of a revolution in the newspaper industry, and even though I'm caught up in the middle of it, it's kind of fun to watch everyone try to muddle their way through.

Photographers are learning how to shoot and edit video. Reporters are learning how to blog. Editors are learning how to link. And managers are desperately trying to come up with new ideas that will help save their industry and their jobs.

At Cyberpresse, they're pumping out videos. Newspapers are jumping on the multimedia train, creating videos, audio slideshows, photo galleries, podcasts and other things they couldn't do on paper.

Part of me doesn't quite understand why newspapers are trying to compete with television and radio on their own turf. TV has been producing three-minute packages much longer than newspapers have, and it shows.

On the other hand, some videos I've seen demonstrate that newspapers are capable of reaching a level of depth you won't get on television outside of PBS or the occasional NFB documentary.

Cyberpresse and its producing partner Top Multimédias offer some good examples for newspaper videos, but unfortunately a lot of examples of what not to do.

Bad: Rudy LeCours

Bad: Rudy Le Cours

In the latter category, you'll find this sleeper from La Presse business columnist Rudy Le Cours. He's standing in front of a bright window (which is one of the first things you learn in photography school not to do because it makes the subject dark) and for three minutes and 27 seconds talks into the camera about ... I think it's unemployment or something. I had to be resuscitated a few times while watching it and I don't remember much. There are no graphics, no charts, no pictures, no numbers. Nothing to make it worth setting up the equipment to have this guy speak text into a camera.

This video from Mali Ilse Paquin in Italy is also a head-scratcher. The audio is clearly taken over the phone or a really bad voice recorder. And the video is just a series of pictures. A blog post or story with the pictures attached would have made much more sense.

Good: Marie-Christine Blais

Good: Marie-Christine Blais

On the other hand we have Marie-Christine Blais and her "Week-end chaud" entertainment preview. She too is talking to the camera, but it's clear she and her camera operator are having fun (something I've long argued is sorely lacking in a lot of news media these days). Not only is she adorable, but she piques my interest enough that I'll click on that play button when her face comes up. The videos also put up web addresses of bands that she mentions (although displaying show times would be useful).

Cyberpresse still has a long way to go. There's no way to add comments to videos or embed videos on other pages. And there's no related links on any of the videos like you can find in YouTube video descriptions. All you can do is go to this page and navigate your way through the various videos in a giant Flash application.

Here's hoping Cyberpresse (and others) move quickly toward having more fun (if not effort) and way less talking heads standing in front of windows.

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Gazette launches transit webpage

February 17, 2009 – 8:15 pm| Posted in Media, Montreal, Public transit
The Gazette, Feb. 17, Page A1

The Gazette, Feb. 17, Page A1

My beloved paper today made a pretty big deal of their new Daily Commuter "one-stop guide" website. Really, it's just a page with links to transit stories that have appeared in the paper (including Max Harrold's Squeaky Wheels weekly column), Transport Quebec traffic cameras, and public transit agencies.

Of course, with the stories we've been seeing lately from the local news media (ahem), calling it the "Daily Complainer" might be more accurate.

What's more interesting is that this isn't the last topic page you'll be seeing on news websites. Not only does this make it easier to find articles of a certain type, it makes it look like there's an entirely new section even if it's just a grouping of articles that have already been written (some even going back a few years).

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Metro website redesign

January 23, 2009 – 4:08 am| Posted in Media, Web design

Metro newspaper website

Metro has redesigned its website. In case anyone cares.

Didn't think so.

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Post-election thoughts

December 9, 2008 – 2:44 pm| Posted in In the news, Media, On the Net

Three election nights in as many months. I'm starting to get the hang of this.

The biggest surprise of the night was Mario Dumont's decision to leave his party leadership. The obvious question that comes up now is: Who the heck is going to lead the ADQ? Can you even name another ADQ MNA?

Amir who?

The biggest electoral surprise is clearly Amir Khadir winning the Plateau riding of Mercier for Québec solidaire. Not only did he unseat the PQ's Daniel Turp, but he surprised a lot of news outlets who hadn't planned for one of the "autres" to get a seat in this election. (Our front page needed a last-minute redesign to add a fourth box for QS's seat total.)

In the early stages of returns, the seat seesawed between Khadir and Turp, but another riding way off near Quebec City was also showing a QS lead (with one poll reporting), reminding everyone that these results were still early. That other candidate ended up dead last with 1,000 votes.

But as the night wore on, the lead became more constant, and slowly started to grow. Cynicism that Khadir's lead would vanish when more conservative mainstream votes came in slowly started to vanish. As the party's co-leaders (they're really going to have to get rid of that co-leadership system) gave their news conference, the networks called the seat for Khadir, and another political party officially entered relevance.

Now, does this mean QS will be invited to leaders' debates?

They almost got it wrong

CTV Montreal is very proud of the fact that they called a majority government first, just after 8:30pm. This means they're cool and their penis is larger than everyone else's, I think. The seats certainly looked to be going to a solid majority early on.

But around 9pm, the number of leading and elected Liberal seats started holding steady at 63-64. This was right on the razor's edge. All it would take is a couple of Liberal-leading seats to shift to another party and Charest loses his majority. Part of me wanted exactly that to happen so that overeager news directors would have to explain why they got it wrong.

In the end, though, the Liberals got 66 seats, pending recounts, and their majority isn't in doubt. Only a couple of ridings in the Montérégie area were close enough (the lead in votes is significantly less than the number of spoiled ballots) that a recount might change something.

Media analysis

I didn't watch any of the live TV coverage (beyond glancing at the changing numbers on the screen), so I'll leave commenting on that to you, or Richard Therrien, or Mike Boone, or Paul Cauchon.

There were liveblogs from Lagacé/Ouimet at Cyberpresse (you can cut the metrosexual tension with a knife) and Philippe Gohier at Maclean's in case you want to re-live the night in real-time.

Here's how the main news sources handled their online results:

  • CTV had its own custom election system which failed in a very important way: It couldn't process a win by a candidate outside the three main parties. Seat totals don't include Québec solidaire, and Amir Khadir is not listed as elected in Mercier, nor is QS or the Green Party listed under "party leaders". It also doesn't list incumbents.
  • Canoe (TVA/Journal) had a very basic, non-Flash elections page. A table of results by party, and individual tables of results for each riding. Québec solidaire was listed under "Autres".
  • CBC, which has been at online election results longer than everyone else, had an interactive election map with colour-coded ridings. The map format made it easier to find ridings visually, but it also meant if you wanted a Montreal riding you had to "zoom in" three times. It also had a separate page with results tables by region (and links to tables by riding). No indication of incumbency here either, which surprised me.
  • Radio-Canada had a different online election setup (do these people not talk to each other? Surely it's easier to translate existing software than create an entirely new system?). It's not much to look at.
  • Cyberpresse, Le Devoir and The Globe and Mail used a flash widget provided by Canadian Press/Presse Canadienne. The interface was slick, with square tiles representing each riding. When you click on them, they jump out and form a staacked bar graph. But it was also incredibly basic. It didn't even provide percentage totals for each candidate. The tile system also made it more difficult to find ridings visually, compared to a real map.
  • The website of the director general of elections (which The Gazette pointed to for results) had the advantages of being official and fast. But around 8:45pm, it stopped updating (while CP and CBC's feeds kept going), panicking reporters and editors who were using it for results. It came back around 9:15 and stayed reliable for the rest of the night. The table system is simple, which is good, but because it's an official site it doesn't declare candidates elected like the news networks do, and it also doesn't note incumbents or incumbent parties.
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New montrealgazette.com now live

November 29, 2008 – 6:46 pm| Posted in Media, Navel-gazing, Web design

Take a look, take the tour, read the note from the editor.

The biggest change is that it's wider (setup for 1024px instead of 800px) and it uses its own domain and branding. There's also a lot of technology behind it that dates from this millennium, which allows you to comment on each article and see which articles are popular.

Feel free to comment there (or here, and I'll pass them along) about the redesign, which took about seven months to complete, and is chain-wide (the Vancouver Sun site is also up, and the first review is positive).

UPDATE: See similar comment threads on redesigned Canwest newspaper sites:

UPDATE (Dec. 3): And if you need it in marketingese, that can be arranged. Nothing is more hip and in touch with young people of today than a press release quoting the general manager and senior vice-president of digital media saying that "Each execution will be customized and branded to reflect the values and personality of each local newspaper."

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Is individuality overrated?

November 7, 2008 – 2:41 am| Posted in Media, Opinion, Web design
Le Droit (left) and Le Soleil (right): Can you spot the difference?

Le Droit (left) and Le Soleil (right): Can you spot the difference?

If you talk to newspaper journalists about their employers' websites (privately), one of their chief gripes is that the site is designed by corporate management and even the newspaper's own management has little control over its website.

Above, you see the websites for Le Droit in Ottawa and Le Soleil in Quebec City. Both are Gesca papers, and part of the Cyberpresse portal. Aside from the newspapers' logos, the design is identical. (I would have used La Presse as an example here, but La Presse doesn't really have a website. Instead, people are directed toward the "Montreal" section of Cyberpresse.)

It's the same case at Quebecor, where websites for the Journal de Québec and 24 Heures are identical, worrying the Journal de Montréal union who think the same would happen once a JdM website launches.

Whether it's Canwest's Canada.com portal (which, as a Gazette editor, I've worked with on the back end), Sun Media's canoe.ca or Transcontinental Media's community weekly newspaper sites, each newspaper chain sets up a massive content management system and gives only bits of control to the individual papers.

The obvious reason for doing this is to save money and avoid the needless duplication of work. Stories can be more easily shared across the network when they're all on the same system. New features like blogs can be introduced across the chain simultaneously. And there's certainly something to be said for consistency.

On the other hand, this cookie-cutter web design removes whatever individuality the individual media outlet might have. It creates a tug of war between the paper and the chain, which can be manifested in something as simple as having to send an email or make a phone call to head office in Montreal or Toronto to get something changed on your website. The worst part is that if there's a bug or other problem, it affects everyone.

So what's the alternative? How do you keep individuality alive in individual media outlets while keeping those websites from degenerating into utter pieces of crap?

Beats me. But allowing individual newspapers more freedom over their site designs (while keeping the underlying structure the same) would be a good start.

Or am I being silly here? Do readers care that all these websites look and function alike?

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Newspaper letter credibility scores one at the Star

November 5, 2008 – 4:44 pm| Posted in Media, Opinion, Technology

Last month, the Toronto Star made an interesting decision concerning so-called "user-generated content": It decided it would no longer be publishing anonymous or pseudonymous web comments on its letters-to-the-editor page. Such "reverse publishing" is being used by a lot of newspapers who want to appear all hip and cool and stuff, and are desperate to increase traffic to their horrible websites.

The main argument, which was also expressed by many people inside the Star's newsroom (they even circulated a petition about it), is that printing these comments alongside letters to the editor essentially creates a double standard: Letters to the editor must be signed and verified if submitted by email or mail, but don't have to be if they're posted in an online forum.

It's a valid argument, but it ignores the big secret about letters to the editor: The verification process for "real" letters isn't much of a verification process at all.

Many newspapers, especially smaller ones, don't even check that the person whose name appears at the bottom of the letter is in fact the person who wrote it. They just copy and paste from their email inbox and assume that if there's a full name that doesn't read "Anita Bath", it's probably legitimate.

Larger newspapers, like the Star, require readers to send their phone number, and an editor or secretary calls them up and verifies their name and whether they wrote the letter. There's no exchange of ID, no looking names up in a database, just a phone call. It works mainly because very few people are going to go through that kind of trouble just to get a fake letter into the newspaper.

Still, I think the change is a good one, if only because seeing online handles like "geeko79", "No McCain fries for John McCain" and "Fagstein" attached to grammatically-incorrect texts in a supposedly respectable newspaper looks ridiculous.

The policy change doesn't affect the website; people will still be able to post with silly pseudonyms there, though that's not what public editor Kathy English would have decided:

I would prefer the Star demand real names of those who comment online. I've been told that's a near-impossible expectation in the online environment. I don't buy that.

Of course, online faces the same problem. Restrict it to verified names, and you cut off most discussion and spent lots of time verifying IDs. The more moderation controls you have, the less commentary you have and the less active the forum becomes.

(via J-Source)

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Missing links

September 24, 2008 – 3:23 am| Posted in Media, Opinion

You know, the fact that a website considering linking to other websites is news... that's one of the many many things that's wrong with corporate media's approach to the Internet.

I hope that, for the sake of their continued existence, a major strategy overhaul takes place among the higher-ups at certain traditional media organizations. But I expect that it won't happen, and that corporate media will continue to be half a decade behind the rest of the world in understanding how to exploit new technology.

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