18:02 greglinch Hello!
18:02 EmilyKostic hello
18:02 EmilyKostic only three people...
18:03 EmilyKostic shall we start and try to recruit more people as we go?
18:03 greglinch I'm about to tweet it.
18:04 greglinch Sent!
18:04 EmilyKostic great
18:04 EmilyKostic well tongiht's question is: "What makes a good editor?"
18:05 @lisawilliams o hai. Couldn't tell if I had the right time.
18:06 EmilyKostic anyone want to start?
18:07 greglinch Finishing making dinner atm, but will jump in soon!
18:08 EmilyKostic Tonight's question for those who have just joined is: What makes a good editor?
18:08 @lisawilliams [Uh oh! I'm a blogger...what do I know about editors?!]
18:09 EmilyKostic I bet you know a lot!
18:10 @lisawilliams If I do, I don't know about it! [laughs]
18:10 @lisawilliams to me, a big question is, what should editors do NOW.
18:11 EmilyKostic what do you mean?
18:11 greglinch I was kinda thinking of the same question.
18:11 greglinch What is the role of an editor when anyone can publish?
18:11 @lisawilliams Like, I don't think that editors in existing traditional newsrooms curate the front page with anywhere near the verve and attention to detail that they do in print.
18:12 erikgable Well, in the most general sense, an editor is a second set of eyes. That's useful no matter who you are or what platform you use.
18:12 EmilyKostic I agree, Erick.
18:12 @lisawilliams and, to @greglinch's point, now some of the pixels on a publication's page are pushed by people who don't work for them, so what does editing mean in that context?
18:13 EmilyKostic but aren't those articles still edited?
18:13 erikgable Lisa, I agree that most publications that are both print and online pay more attention to putting together the print front page than the online front page -- although that's not entirely our fault.
18:13 emilyingram Hello all.
18:13 @lisawilliams @erikgable I think that's true...and when I think about it I can't imagine being happy having one. (that's my bad, not theirs, of course)
18:14 erikgable A lot of it is that many, many news sites are powered by platforms that don't allow anywhere NEAR the flexibility you have when you're starting from a blank QuarkXPress document.
18:14 greglinch @Lisa: I thought mostly the same, but my perspective changed a little last summer when I interned at the Dallas Morning News. I was pleasantly surprised how much care attention the Web staff paid to the homepage.
18:14 @lisawilliams @EmilyKostic sure, but I think I'm more interested in editing as crafting the assortment rather than quality testing the individual chocolates [mmmmm whitman's sampler...man I love that little map...]
18:14 greglinch They even had daily Web meetings to plan the homepage, like everyone has for the print product.
18:15 @lisawilliams @erikgable this is entirely true. And no software vendor wants the news industry as a customer segment.
18:15 EmilyKostic @greglinch that's becoming more and more common. I agree
18:15 @lisawilliams @greglinch That's good; a lot of places I look, I still think, okay, I want to hit the back button now.
18:16 erikgable Also, a lot of smaller orgs are in the same boat as we are -- we have a full-time person devoted to page design for print, and several people whose jobs are at least partly devoted to print page design, but nobody devoted full-time to the Web side.
18:16 @lisawilliams I mean, this is emblematic of what I'm talking about:
http://www.suntimes.com/index.html
18:17 erikgable @lisawilliams I find most news sites frustrate me a lot when I'm trying to find anything more than a day old.
18:17 @lisawilliams true, and there's the fact that from the point of view of the web, every page is the front page.
18:18 greglinch @Lisa: That page is just a mess in general though, as many newspaper.coms are.
18:18 @lisawilliams @greglinch, I agree, but I also think the same paper would never let the print edition go out the door looking anywhere near as tawdry as this does.
18:19 greglinch @Lisa: Of course not. It's a simple rule that actually carries over from print: use your "front" to highlight your best/most important/interesting work.
18:19 @lisawilliams Maybe we just have to wait, though. My experience of such redesigns is that they take a year.
18:19 greglinch And for the web, of course, timely.
18:20 erikgable @lisawilliams I think it was Ryan Sholin who made the comment once that getting a single line of code added to a newspaper's Web site takes at least six months... or words to that effect
18:20 @lisawilliams @erikgable yeah, and that's a problem, though at this point I don't know how prevalent it is.
18:21 greglinch This is not a newspaper, but one of the most refreshing homepages I've seen in a long time
http://thebolditalic.com
-- a Gannett experiment in SF
18:22 @lisawilliams @greglinch I just saw that, I had no idea it was Gannett.
18:22 erikgable I do enjoy that, especially from a standpoint of allowing you to showcase good art in a more print-like way
18:22 greglinch Yup. They partnered with some IDEO folks.
18:23 @lisawilliams But even if we put aside the issue of the differences in appearance -- which I'm assuming the editors don't control in any medium -- the assortment and placement of items and curation on the web is what I'm more interested in.
18:23 greglinch The biggest problem with most news/newspaper sites is usability.
18:23 @lisawilliams @greglinch. Wow. IDEO = $$$.
18:24 greglinch @Lisa: Good topic.
18:25 @lisawilliams I heard recently that Business Week's BX cost millions. So, another problem is, no innovation without pricey imported talent, which makes the risk of failure much higher and more painful.
18:26 erikgable One problem: Having every paper in a group hire its own developer = very expensive. So tendency is for all papers in a group to be on a single platform, which has to be general enough to fit everybody's needs, and thus not all that flexible.
18:26 @lisawilliams So, in the current regime, how often should an editor rearrange or bump items? Do section fronts even matter?
18:27 erikgable @lisawilliams On our site (lenconnect.com), section fronts are really just chronological. The only place we mess with ranking and rearranging is on the homepage.
18:27 @lisawilliams @erikgable that gives me a pretty grim sense of the future, then.
18:28 erikgable @lisawilliams Not really. One thing that can improve the situation is developing platforms that ARE scalable, and CAN serve the needs of 200 papers at once, but are built on frameworks that allow lots of individual modification.
18:30 SaleemKhan I may have missed this part of the conversation but a news site front page is increasingly irrelevant
18:32 EmilyKostic @saleem so true. How does the role of the editor play a role in this?
18:33 SaleemKhan Editor has to focus the team and their effort toward individual stories
18:33 SaleemKhan The unit of news is no longer the publication.
18:34 erikgable Not sure what you mean.
18:34 SaleemKhan It's atomized to the story level.
18:34 @dawnvanness No matter where the entry point is, the page needs to connect back to other parts within the site-bread crumbs.
18:34 erikgable @dawnvanness Definitely
18:34 SaleemKhan People used to consume news by picking up a publication or tuning into a broadcast.
18:35 SaleemKhan They did so to be given a package of stories.
18:35 SaleemKhan Now, people seek out individual stories.
18:35 SaleemKhan They rarely enter your site from a home page or landing page, if they enter your site at all
18:36 SaleemKhan And they don't sit through full broadcasts or read through full publications as they once may have unless you have an exceptional offering.
18:37 SaleemKhan People seek out individual stories, both in traditional media and the Internet
18:37 SaleemKhan Online that discovery happens via RSS readers, social search and search engines.
18:37 erikgable Whoops -- exceeded size limit. Let me try again.
18:37 erikgable @SaleemKhan They still do. 45% of our traffic comes from people going straight to our homepage. 32% from search engines, 22% from referring sites.
18:38 erikgable We need to recognize that people get to us other ways -- like @dawnvanness said, making it easy for people to get places from individual story pages -- but people DO still seek out publications.
18:38 SaleemKhan @Erik What does the trend line show?
18:39 erikgable @SaleemKhan Hard to say, since we switched analytics platforms a few months ago.
18:39 SaleemKhan I can't speak to individual cases with which I'm not familiar but generally, people discover individual stories.
18:39 erikgable I imagine the trend line would show direct visits going doen as a % of total, but I don't think the end result of that trend is direct traffic going to 0 -- I imagine it will level out at some point.
18:40 SaleemKhan I don't think it will go to zero either
18:40 SaleemKhan At least not in the short term
18:41 erikgable I'm on our analytics right now ... let me see if I can get a very short-term idea of trends.
18:42 erikgable This month, 45.98% direct traffic, September 48.92,. and that's as far as I can go...
18:43 erikgable I agree that we need to take into account people coming from places other than the homepage, but don't think we can afford to consider it irrelevant.
18:43 SaleemKhan I was just curious. But the individual anecdotal case doesn't make the rule
18:44 @dawnvanness Homepage can still be valuable as branding.
18:44 SaleemKhan If I were at a college media outlet now, I'd be focusing on how to make the individual story page a home page, and on a mobile site
18:44 @dawnvanness Just not as critical as when newsboys wer waving THE WAR HAS ENDED in the air.
18:44 erikgable @dawnvanness When I find something I like via an outside source, after I read that thing, I usually click on the site banner to see what's on the front page.
18:45 erikgable @SaleemKhan How do you approach that? Is it partly a matter of making sure your sidebars are very useful from a navigational standpoint?
18:45 erikgable Like having "most recent stories" and "most commented stories" spots in the sidebar, etc.?
18:46 @dawnvanness I repeated my navigation bar on each page to invite trafic back to the homepage
18:46 SaleemKhan @Erik That's a huge design question, but yes, those elements can be a apart of it.
18:46 @dawnvanness I like the story rankings in the sidebar-also when things are suggested that are related
18:47 SaleemKhan @dawn All good points.
18:48 erikgable One thing I'd say, and it seems basic but I've seen sites that don't do it, is that every page has to have your site's header, and the header ABSOLUTELY has to be a link to the homepage.
18:50 SaleemKhan Not sure -- is the topic still the editor's role?
18:50 EmilyKostic We can go back to that
18:50 SaleemKhan Just wondering. Wouldn't want to go too far afield
18:50 @dawnvanness I thought maybe a logo vs. header at times, like a facebook badge, versus a whole header. Although space is infinite, people focus only on what is on the screen. the header gets bumped out.
18:51 EmilyKostic Give some examples of editors who "get it" and what traits they have that make them so successful
18:51 KatieRogers Hi there, I'm a grad student from Medill and saw greg's tweet. Thought I'd peek in.
18:51 SaleemKhan Get what?
18:52 EmilyKostic online - what we were just talking about
18:52 EmilyKostic sorry should have clarified
18:52 SaleemKhan Sorry, I'm coming in late so I'm forced to clarify.
18:53 SaleemKhan Aron Pilhofer at NYTimes gets it
18:53 EmilyKostic explain...
18:54 SaleemKhan Hi Katie
18:54 @dawnvanness Research articles are saying editors today are still thinking like print editors and underusing the possibilities of technology
18:54 SaleemKhan The Web is not being used to its full advantage by and large
18:55 @remx3 Wouldn't most of that be because many editors grew up with print? Or are we talking about younger sites?
18:55 SaleemKhan But Aron (head of interactive unit at NYTimes) understands that the medium can do far more than just port a print or broadcast model of news distribution and delivery to the Web
18:56 SaleemKhan You guys are the ones who will have to invent and define this medium
18:56 EmilyKostic @rem either/or. What do you think?
18:57 SaleemKhan The people who created TV news grew up in a world of print and radio
18:57 EmilyKostic Good point
18:58 EmilyKostic Anyone else have any examples?
18:59 erikgable @remx3 I don't think we can assume it's all generational, that only people who grew up with the Web can "get it." There was one recent study that showed acceptance and embrace of change seems to be unrelated to age...
19:00 erikgable http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=115633
19:00 @remx3 did my message come up or was there a length problem?
19:00 KatieRogers The editor I had at my first reporting job was really excited about new media and it was awesome. The paper is better because of it. And he's mid-career.
19:01 erikgable @remx3 I think it got eaten.
19:01 SaleemKhan Jim Brady, now of Politico's new DC site gets it
19:01 RENEE1958 Embrace of change is unrelated to age.
19:02 SaleemKhan That's exactly right.
19:02 @remx3 Emily are you asking me what I think? Sorry, I came in late and it's hard to figure out the topic. I'd excuse the "old ways" and wait for gradual evolution....
19:02 @remx3 I think that one difference between TV news and internet/print is that internet news is more geared towards putting print on the web. That's not the worst thing in the world but it does diminish the usefullness of the web.
19:03 @remx3 Is Brady's site up yet? As for the article, I want it both ways really: print and online.
19:03 RENEE1958 New media is awesome and there is so much out there for students to learn and embrace. I have to confess, though, I do enjoy reading a print product as well as having the convenience of a web product.
19:04 erikgable @remx3 Certainly it is easier to shovel print onto the Web than to shovel print onto TV. That means it's easiier for us to NOT think in Web-native ways than it was for early TV people to not think in TV-native ways.
19:04 RENEE1958 I want the web product to be searchable in case I'm looking for something specific and sometimes that's hard to come by.
19:04 KatieRogers I think good editors understand that web writing and print writing will feel different to readers.
19:05 RENEE1958 I tend to agree with that
19:05 erikgable @KatieRogers I think there's also a lot of overlap, though.
19:06 RENEE1958 It is going to take a lot of experimenting or experimentation to find that balance, don't you think?
19:06 @dawnvanness Calculated risks.
19:06 @dawnvanness : )
19:06 SaleemKhan @rmx3 What do you mean by saying the Web is geared toward print? As a state of affairs or that it lends itself to print? And no, the site is not up. Jim said he's going to have something to say this week.
19:07 @remx3 Speaking of Brady's site, I thought it was a bit of a milestone that there could be so much excitement over a hundred percent online product. Of course, everyone I was listening to are geeks.
19:07 SaleemKhan @Katie Can you explain what you mean by the diferences between Web and print writing?
19:08 @remx3 @saleemkhan my impression is that most organizations present their web product in a very similar way to print. I've noticed some sites, like WaPo, featuring different stories but otherwise it seems the same. Do you disagree?
19:08 RENEE1958 the WaPo is an exceptional site, though.
19:09 RENEE1958 I agree there is a tendency to present the content on web similarly to the content in print.
19:09 @dawnvanness @katie web writing - short, to the point, subheadings etc. print - longer, wordier format?
19:10 erikgable @dawnvannews: I would argue the answer is no.
19:10 RENEE1958 I read longer stories on the web all the time.
19:10 erikgable Short, to-the-point, subheadings -- all of these things are good in print as well.
19:10 SaleemKhan I think I said earlier that the Web is not being used to its full advantage and has been treated as a space into which text and audio/video are simply ported
19:10 @dawnvanness THey are teaching that to write for web, short and to the point and more broken up and easier to skim and navigate.
19:10 SaleemKhan So, no, I don't disagree
19:11 RENEE1958 Sometimes I think the only people using the Web to its full advantage have the address amazon.com
19:11 @dawnvanness we are told our personal reading preferences are irrelivent in mass comm journalism
19:11 SaleemKhan @dawn How are your reading preferences irrelevant?
19:12 RENEE1958 good question.
19:12 erikgable I would argue that the key difference is not writing style, but rather format ...
19:12 @dawnvanness I like longer words and longer sentences-but the style isn't good for web journalism.
19:13 @dawnvanness That is what I'm taught.
19:13 sarahsodyssey Hi all. I'm Sarah Jackson from Kwantlen Polytechnic University near Vancouver, BC. Sorry I'm late!
19:13 SaleemKhan One thing that few j-schools teach and that most editors don't understand, in my estimation, is the importance of writing copy in a way that improves search discovery
19:13 KatieRogers alternative story formats are the main difference, i'd say (saleem, renee)
19:13 erikgable In print, we get the daily story, summarizing what's happened in the past day. Online, we can go in TWO directions from that -- (1) the constant updates, as they happen, and (2) the Wikipedia-style compilations of useful data
19:14 sarahsodyssey What's our topic right now?
19:14 RENEE1958 Gives more choices for the web reader/browser.
19:14 SaleemKhan @dawn You should ask your profs to explain and justify a bold statetment like that
19:14 KatieRogers plus, if you're talking about a newspaper, the print audience differs a lot from the web audience
19:14 SaleemKhan Hi Sarah
19:14 @remx3 Hi Sarah.
19:14 KatieRogers (although less and less so)
19:14 RENEE1958 Dawn, I agree with Saleem.
19:15 @remx3 I think short senetences and words are best for print, too, Dawn.
19:15 @dawnvanness THey give us research that backs the assertions of consumer reading habits.
19:15 SaleemKhan Still on the role of editor but it wanders. Right now, we're talking about Web writing -- I think
19:15 SaleemKhan @dawn So they're saying give 'em hat they want, not what you want?
19:16 @remx3 @SaleemKhan can you expand on search discovery? Do you mean something that will pop up higher on google?
19:16 erikgable You could argue that the things that make for good SEO also make for a well-written print story...
19:17 SaleemKhan How different is the print vs. Web audience for your college publications?
19:17 @dawnvanness If you want to be read: 1 - get them the first line 2 - keep is short and sweet 3 - don't use big words 4 - love the period (.) Attention spans are shrinking.
19:17 @remx3 agree with dawn
19:18 @dawnvanness unfortunately, I was an english major, so I've had to learn to respect a different audience that isn't as print oriented as me.
19:18 SaleemKhan @erik In some cases, yes, in some cases, no. You can write a clever headline that makes sense to a person but will be terrible for machine indexing
19:19 @dawnvanness Oh I forgot about the machines...and search engines.
19:19 SaleemKhan @dawn Which part is unfortunate, the English major or respect? ;)
19:19 sarahsodyssey My college has a much larger web audience than our print audience. We also receive more freedom with our web writing.
19:20 erikgable @SaleemKhan True. Largely b/c of visual cues that are present in print but not necessarily online, such as photos, topic lines, subheads, datelines, etc.
19:21 @dawnvanness LOL Had to give up any vistage of superiority. The respect was a bonus.
19:22 SaleemKhan @erik I wasn't referring to the visual cues but yes, those can also help give people an advantage in understanding that a search spider wouldn't have
19:26 @dawnvanness How does a good editor deal with search engines? I noticed with I search on individual news sites I get a lot of irrelevant articles or no articles even when I know they published something on say "bears." ?
19:27 @remx3 OT: @EmilyKostic You go to Rowan? That's cool. I thought a bunch about that school. I just saw you mentioned on twitter for your pacemaker.
19:27 @dawnvanness when, not with
19:28 EmilyKostic Yes I do go to Rowan. Just found out we got a pacemaker
19:30 EmilyKostic back to dawn's question, how does a good editor deal with search engines?
19:31 SaleemKhan So, what's the short list of traits that make a good editor?
19:31 erikgable @EmilyKostic Apart from making sure to follow good SEO practices, I really don't know...
19:31 erikgable @SaleemKhan I'm not sure there IS a short list.
19:32 SaleemKhan @erik I mean what's emerged from this chat tonight
19:32 @remx3 Yeah. I have no idea how to answer either question.
19:33 SaleemKhan How does a good editor deal with search engines? Lure them in and pummel them into submission.
19:33 EmilyKostic haha
19:33 @remx3 But, for both I'd say "by experimenting."
19:33 KatieRogers Perfect, remx
19:33 SaleemKhan The serious answer: I dont think that's necessarily the right or best question.
19:34 SaleemKhan The question is really about people
19:34 SaleemKhan How does an editor help his/her staff deal with search engines?
19:35 @remx3 How about doing it backwards? Telling them to hope onto Google and try and find something. After doing that, write a more friendly article?
19:35 SaleemKhan The answer is training: Help staff understand that they are writing, shooting, editing, and producing for three audiences now
19:36 @remx3 I think SEO is just a term that people throw around a lot without knowing what it means. I only have a basic understanding, if that.
19:37 SaleemKhan 1. Traditional media consumers 2. Online audiences 3. Web spiders
19:37 SaleemKhan #remx3 You're right
19:37 KatieRogers this might sound stupid, but is this something editors are supposed to be doing now? i've never heard of an ed busying themselves w/ seo stuff.
19:37 SaleemKhan Actually, four audiences -- mobile
19:38 SaleemKhan @Katie Not a stupid question -- it's exactly the right question
19:38 @remx3 I think that's the problem, @katie @saleemkhan what does your list correspond too, I've lost track.
19:38 @remx3 to*
19:38 SaleemKhan Editors should have been doing this before now, so yes, now is the time to learn it. And not just editors -- reporters, too.
19:39 KatieRogers hmm.
19:39 SaleemKhan @remx3 I'm just saying that journalists need to keep these audiences in mind when they're producing their work
19:40 @remx3 Okay. It makes sense now.
19:41 @remx3 Not to be redudant, but I think most people write for number one at that list and don't have much of an idea how to write for 2-4. I only have vague notations of how to write for 2-4.
19:42 erikgable I really think that 1 and 2 are not all THAT different.
19:42 erikgable And 4 is composed of a lot of the same people as 1 and 2 -- it's just that they need things to be presented in a way that's convenient to the medium.
19:42 erikgable Maybe I'm putting this wrong.
19:42 SaleemKhan Maybe in a few years systems will emerge that remove the need for people to actively think about this stuff. But that's not the case today.
19:43 SaleemKhan You should be examining search trends to discover stories to cover and learn how to produce stories that will gain traffic
19:43 SaleemKhan That's correct, Erik.
19:44 erikgable The statement, or the "maybe I'm putting this wrong"?:)
19:44 SaleemKhan But not just convenient to the medium -- it should address audience needs in that medium
19:45 SaleemKhan No, I think you expressed yourself well, Erik
19:46 @dawnvanness Got to run, but wanted to thank everyone for contributing. Helps me "get it" as I'm launching. Unsteadily. ; ) All Best.
19:46 @remx3 bye
19:47 sarahsodyssey Oops. Typing with limit reached. Second try: Personally, I don't think the writing itself needs to be that different. I think web analytics should be used as tools to direct us to our audience's topics of interest.
19:47 sarahsodyssey And if we continue to cover things that need to see the light of day, too, we have the bases covered. Then there is just technical editing/formatting/SEO stuff that varies slightly.
19:48 erikgable More or less the same writing can be used in two different ways to take advantage of the medium
19:49 erikgable A couple of basic examples: (1) in print, you can control how people see the writing, guiding comprehension with visual cues. (2) online, you can link.
19:49 erikgable Theoretically, the exact same words can be presented in two different ways, both of them calculated to use the medium to your advantage
19:50 EmilyKostic We have ten minutes - any last thoughts?
19:51 @remx3 Is there some reason why online can't have the samve visual clues? Search engines should be configured to recgonize them?
19:51 erikgable @remx Yes and no. Some cues can translate to online, others less so.
19:53 SaleemKhan Journalists should forget about what's gone before and start brainstorming about what's possible online (not just Web sites), no matter how crazy it may seem. Now is the time to try new things, new ways of telling stories
19:53 SaleemKhan That's the quickest way to start changing things.
19:55 EmilyKostic Alright guys well, thanks again for coming out tonight.
19:55 @remx3 These things start at 8?
19:55 EmilyKostic yes!
19:56 @remx3 ok
19:56 KatieRogers this was so interesting!
19:56 KatieRogers night
19:58 sarahsodyssey I also agree with web we should be trying new things, shaking it up! My vision is a customizable news haven where people build their home page with their favourite sources, etc. Journalism is headed new and great places. :)
19:58 sarahsodyssey Good to see you all. Thanks everyone.
19:59 SaleemKhan @sarah Look up the Fishwrap project at MIT about 10 years ago. Sounds similar.
20:03 sarahsodyssey Interesting. Thanks Saleem. It is similar but I'm thinking of something more like Facebook - completely user-built through feeds and tags.
20:04 @remx3 ugh. I like facebook as a more advanced classmates.com but twitter is the place for user-building.
20:09 sarahsodyssey Maybe that isn't a good example then. Think of a web site where you have an account, then you have access to feeds from all your favourite news sources, latest headlines, top-rated vids, etc. and can drag and drop them on your home page.
20:09 sarahsodyssey Users would rate things so you could see which links are valuable... That's my vision.
20:10 @remx3 It sounds like myyahoo
20:11 SaleemKhan The concept has spread because it works. I think Sarah envisions something more refined
20:12 SaleemKhan That's all for me tonight. Good night.
20:12 @remx3 looking up fishwrap it looks like pandora
20:13 @remx3 I think I'll go, too.
20:14 SaleemKhan SF Chronicle licensed Fishwrap, if I recall correctly.
20:15 sarahsodyssey Thanks and take care. Good night!
20:27 guest5626239 hello
20:27 guest5626239 heyyyyyy
