Andy Rutledge: Redesigning NYTimes.com

cameronmoll:

Redesigning NYTimes.com

Andy Rutledge:

Regarding content strategy and mechanism, today’s ‘news’ is rife with irrelevancies and distractions. Part of this is due to the news industry’s abandonment of actual journalism, but much of it is due to thoughtless promotional strategy and pathetic pandering. I suggest that digital news acquire a responsible and more usable approach.

Andy’s arguments and mockups are both very well-conceived — I would love to see online journalism (all of it, not just NYT) head in this direction. His design concepts are fabulous.

I do believe, however, there should be an affordance for social components in news media, as the context of others’ opinions as to what is news and what isn’t, and what is more important news for that matter, can be helpful in sifting through the daily deluge of reported information. Not that peers are more discerning than editors, mind you, but that their voices (ours, that is) should be allowed to influence society’s understanding of the world around us.

An interesting take on online news design.

theatlantic: ‘Google Doesn’t Laugh’: Saving Witty Headlines in the Age of SEO To Matthew Crowley, funny headlines are serious business. “Come on,” Crowley says, tapping his knuckle against the dry-erase board. “What else can we use from this story?” It’s Saturday afternoon in Phoenix, and the American Copy Editors Society’s annual conference is drawing to a close. Crowley, a copy editor for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is conducting a headline-writing workshop inside a classroom at The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. The conference has drawn hundreds of copy editors from newspapers around the country. “It’s not about getting the most readers; it’s about getting the ‘most best’ readers.” In his session, “Heads We Win,” Crowley is soliciting catchy headlines for a story on Leonard Nimoy’s foray into cooking. “Spice: The Final Frontier,” someone offers. “Spice me up, Scotty,” says another. “Vulcan Kitchen.” And so on. It’s no surprise that the ideas come quickly. After all, these people write clever headlines for a living. But the task has a new sense of urgency. If all online searches are literal, what happens to the headlines that involve a play on words? Are those headlines relegated to the print edition, where headline writers have a captive audience? Indeed, as newspapers embrace search engine optimization, and as young journalists are taught to value Google visibility above all else, many copy editors fear that funny headlines are quickly going the way of the classified ad. Read more at The Atlantic As the online desk, I have to say: It’s all true.
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theatlantic:

‘Google Doesn’t Laugh’: Saving Witty Headlines in the Age of SEO

To Matthew Crowley, funny headlines are serious business.

“Come on,” Crowley says, tapping his knuckle against the dry-erase board. “What else can we use from this story?”

It’s Saturday afternoon in Phoenix, and the American Copy Editors Society’s annual conference is drawing to a close. Crowley, a copy editor for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is conducting a headline-writing workshop inside a classroom at The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. The conference has drawn hundreds of copy editors from newspapers around the country. “It’s not about getting the most readers; it’s about getting the ‘most best’ readers.” In his session, “Heads We Win,” Crowley is soliciting catchy headlines for a story on Leonard Nimoy’s foray into cooking.

“Spice: The Final Frontier,” someone offers. “Spice me up, Scotty,” says another. “Vulcan Kitchen.” And so on.

It’s no surprise that the ideas come quickly. After all, these people write clever headlines for a living. But the task has a new sense of urgency. If all online searches are literal, what happens to the headlines that involve a play on words? Are those headlines relegated to the print edition, where headline writers have a captive audience? Indeed, as newspapers embrace search engine optimization, and as young journalists are taught to value Google visibility above all else, many copy editors fear that funny headlines are quickly going the way of the classified ad.

Read more at The Atlantic

As the online desk, I have to say: It’s all true.