Results matching “a quick summary”

The Los Angeles Times' website drew 115 million page views in June, just short of its all-time traffic record of 120 million PV set in May.

A quick glance at the list of most-read stories and most-viewed multimedia features in June gives a good idea of readers' favorite topics of interest - namely a push towards celebrity news and away from global issues and traditionally important topics such as the general elections. The lists also show that, despite newspapers' widespread emphasis on blogs and videos, these platforms still account for a minimal share of total traffic.

Furthermore, these lists provide some indications about how reader interests may vary from one platform to the other (news, blogs, videos, picture galleries).

If one supposes that latimes.com readership isn't too significantly different from average online newspaper readership, then these numbers hint toward which formats work best for different topics (Skip to 'Insights' for a brief summary).

Text - Top articles:

1. Alex Kozinski suspends L.A. obscenity trial after conceding his website had sexual images (Scott Glover)
2. Mega-mansions are L.A.'s really big show (Jessica Garrison)
3. Oliver Stone and 'W.,' a story of President Bush (John Horn)
4. Fourth day of triple digits sends crowds to L.A. pools, beaches  (Tami Abdollah)
5. Packing in public: Gun owners tired of hiding their weapons embrace 'open carry' (Nicholas Riccardi)
6. Envisioning a world of $200-a-barrel oil (Martin Zimmerman)
7. Judge orders TMZ to remove sex tape of actor Verne Troyer (Harriet Ryan)
8. Lakers have a collapse for the ages (Mike Bresnahan)
9. Offshore oil drilling opponents are rethinking (Richard Simon and Bob Drogin)
10. Obama leads in battle for Latino vote (Peter Wallsten)


The first thing that strikes us when looking at the list is how few stories relate to 'global' issues or to the general elections in the US: ranked 6 is a column about rising oil prices and the only story directly related to the elections is ranked 10. The majority of stories have mostly local relevance about Los Angeles.

(Only) one of the top 10 stories concerns sports - a usually strong section for most newspaper websites although June isn't the biggest season for sports in the US - and the Lakers' basketball team's demise in the championship finals.

The top three stories (and 7) revolve, more or less closely, around issues of sex and the cult of celebrities and entertainment. Number 3 is a story about the making-of Oliver Stone's latest movie about President George W. Bush. Granted, considering Los Angeles' prime location in the movie and celebrity industry, it isn't particularly surprising that many latimes.com readers are going for those stories.

But this doesn't necessarily mean that readers of latimes.com news articles prefer 'softer' content compared to readers of other online newspapers. In fact, this distribution is probably representative of a move towards celebrity news by mainstream media and the audience in general.

Limitations: This is a very cursive overview of readers' favorite topics for news stories only looking at the top 10. A more in-depth study would possibly show that while a few select individual stories about sex and celebrities receive many hits, the sections for 'hard' news (World, Business, National) on the whole generate substantially more traffic than Entertainment.

Top blogs:

1. Top of the Ticket  -- 1,743,178 PV
2. The Dish Rag  -- 1,437,462 PV
3. L.A. Land --  652,605 PV
4. Lakers Blog      
5. Show Tracker                
6. L.A. Now         
7. Technology Blog (first month out, and in the top ten)       
8. Gold Derby      
9. Web Scout      
10. Countdown to Crawford (launched June 17)


Now a look at the top-10 list of blogs gives a more intricate perspective: compared to news stories, the blog format seems to draw more readers to 'serious' topics such as politics and the general elections.

The political blog Top of the Ticket is in the lead, and Countdown to Crawford (a blog that covers the final steps of the elections) has made it to the list although it was only launched in mid-June. Ranked 6, L.A. Now covers general news about California.

It may seem counter-intuitive that readers prefer the blog format, usually associated with a more conversational tone and less formality, to read stories about politics. On the other hand, this preference could also be explained by the fact that those readers precisely prefer a format open to opinion and debate to read about those topics. Since blogs typically allow for more author disclosure, they can also be seen as a more transparent medium.

The last two blogs revolve around technology and developments in the digital landscape, a thematic that was absent from the Top 10 news stories.

Limitations: Again, this is hardly a scientific procedure, and the top 10 blogs on latimes.com account for less than 5% of total page views on the site. To put this in further perspective, five of the ten blogs relate to 'softer' content - three revolve around celebrities and the movie industry - one is about the Lakers and number 3 is a blog about real estate (note the parallel with the news story about mansions ranking 2).

Furthermore, The Dish Rag, ranked 2, is edging close to Top of the Ticket, so that in reality the number of users consulting LA Times blogs for soft and hard news is probably equivalent.

Pictures - Top photo galleries:

1.  Celebrity and sports collide in L.A.
2.  Universal Studios fire
3.  Celebrities' real names revealed (Denise Martin and Stephanie Lysaght)
4.  Hollywood hunks before they were hot (Elizabeth Snead)
5.  Celebrities by The Times
6.  Celebrity shots
7.  Midwest flooding
8.  Top 9 cars women buy more than men
9.  Hollywood's unwedded bliss list (Elizabeth Snead)
10. R-rated firsts (Susan King)

Unsurprisingly, the list of most popular photo galleries is also dominated by celebrities, even more so than for news stories or blogs (seven out of ten).

Of the three remaining picture galleries, two are big general news stories with obviously strong visual content: ranked 2 is the Universal Studios fire and ranked 7 is a gallery about floods in the Midwest.

Video - Top videos:

1. Dogs orphaned in China's quake find a home - 132,239 streams - AP
2. LAPD goes green: Maya Sanchez reports - 112,375 streams - KTLA
3. Tsvangirai on Mugabe - AP
4. Local update: Moe the chimp escapes cage -  KTLA
5. Amanda Beard heads to Omaha for her fourth Olympic swim - LAT
6. 17-year-old decapitated by Six Flags ride - AP
7. Australia marks Iraq withdraw with parade - AP
8. Evening update: USC student sentenced to time served in baby's death - KTLA
9. Fires grip parts of California - AP
10. Bush pleased with war spending bill - AP

The top-10 list for videos also delivers its share of lessons. First of all, despite newspapers' wild rush to boost video content, videos generate a limited amount of traffic compared to most text stories.

Many of the videos in the list are 'soft', but don't relate to entertainment especially. Instead, they are often emotionally-driven (dogs orphaned in China, 17-year old girl decapitated at a fair park). A lot of these popular videos are visual anecdotes with a potential for virality (Moe the chimp escapes cage).

'Hard' news, ie. a Congress debate about legislation or a business acquisition, does not typically constitute a popular pick for videos, as it is often poor visually.

The majority of successful video content is syndicated, generally provided by the Associated Press (only one of the top 10 videos was produced by the LA Times). Considering the average PVs for videos, and although CPMs for video ads are usually higher than for regular PVs, it is still often (too) costly for newspapers to produce their own quality videos.

Insights

In short, here are some of the insights brought by latimes.com's Top-10 lists:

- The Los Angeles Times has strongly emphasized 'soft' news, which is becoming increasingly popular among regular news stories.
- On the other hand, its blogs seem to attract many viewers interested by politics - although half of the blogs in the list deal with lighter content.
- The blog format is also popular when they deal with technological issues.
- To an extent, it could be inferred that the latimes.com is fulfilling its role as a newspaper by focusing on 'local' stories: Hollywood, celebrities and the entertainment industry being part of that local context.
- The photo galleries are overwhelmingly dominated by pictures of celebrities. The only two 'hard' news stories are obviously visual: a fire and floods.
- Video content must also be visually rich, but the most popular videos are those that are emotionally-driven and potentially viral (ie: humorous anecdotes, shocking stories).

The purpose of this piece was simply to make some observations as to the types of topics preferred by online users, depending on the format they were published in. The goal wasn't to quaintly warn editors against the risks of chasing eyeballs at the expense of news judgment.

However, these Top-10 lists are clearly representative of the trend, adopted both by editors and by the audience, towards more celebrity-type news, or 'soft' news in general. In January and April, when the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times announced that they were beefing up coverage of Britney Spears, at the same time as newsrooms across the nation couldn't afford the expenses of covering the elections, many newspaper editors were outraged by this rush towards more catchy, entertainment-driven, stories.

According to others, celebrity is a cultural currency that fulfils a role in the press. But at what cost?

The publishers of the Cleveland Plain Dealer are revamping and redesigning the paper to combat smothering economic conditions. Changes will include, among other things, a front section easy to scan through and an area for reader feedback.

"Today we are sharing in another community challenge: a tough, rapidly shifting economy that is demanding changes of nearly every big industry, small business, and individual household," Publisher Terry Egger said in a letter to readers.

"The Plain Dealer is no exception."

The Plain Dealer detailed the changes in a two-page summary. A reshuffled front section will allow readers looking for a quick scan to have easy, comprehensive access to the crucial facts. Page Two's WakeUpCall will include regular columns, an area for reader feedback, and a brand-new "Five Smart Things You Should Know Today" summary.

"If you only have a few minutes," the summary says, "This page is your watercooler study guide."

Though it went unmentioned in the release, the changes at the Plain Dealer also include trimming pages. According to Managing Editor Debra Adams Simmons, the paper will be reduced by an average of 32 pages per week.

"It plays out differently on different days of the week," Simmons said. "We are looking at fewer pages per week."

Other changes include an expanded Sunday opinion forum and a new Diversions section - featuring comics, puzzles, and crosswords - that will wrap around the daily Classifieds. Additionally, the business section will no longer be published Mondays, and will instead be available online.

The paper also produced a daily time timeline designed to give readers a peek inside the daily churnings of a newspaper.

"We'd like you to understand more about what it takes to create, build, manufacture and deliver what we call 'the daily miracle'," Egger said.

To view PDFs of the summary and the timeline, click here, and scroll down to the links near the bottom of the article.

Source: Cleveland.com, Editor and Publisher

Kathleen Carroll, Executive Editor and Senior Vice President of the Associated Press, will speak during the session entitled "Will Web 2.0 give birth to Journalism 2.0?" at the upcoming World Editors Forum, to be held in Gothenburg, Sweden, June 1-4.

In the last six months, AP has codified its news delivery process to follow the rule of '1-2-3 filing' for all of its stories. (This process was partly based on findings from AP's anthropological study of young digital news consumers, which will also be presented during the Forum.)

Under this process, "It no longer is an assumption that text is the default and only way to tell a story." said Carroll.

This doesn't (yet) put into question the predominance of text in newspapers and its efficiency as a medium. "It's the best way to get the fast word out," she said. Only now, AP reporters also think about the most appropriate media to tell a story, which will be of most use to customers.

In the '1-2-3' model:

- 1st: AP delivers a simple headline, in about fifty character, for quick breaking news updates
- 2nd: 'AP News Now' - the news agency produces a 130-word summary of the story, written in a platform-agnostic style "that can be read on the air by broadcaster, or used online, or even printed in some print publications," said Carroll.
- 3rd: AP editors and reporters then think of the best way - or media - to tell the story. In some cases, this is simply a 500-word story. In others, an interactive graphic or video are more appropriate. Some stories don't have a third step: the 130-word sum-up was sufficient. Others "blossom into many stories."

The second and third steps are most significant in taking the AP to 'Journalism 2.0'. "It doesn't sound radical when you say it out loud," she said, but it is "if you inject it into your daily news decisions."

For example, following the cyclone in Myanmar, AP produced a detailed interactive graphic, which was widely picked up and even used by US broadcaster MSNBC.

After the earthquake in China, AP decided to distribute a user-generated video shot during the earthquake (AP has regularly invited users to contribute content, particularly imagery, through portals such as SendtoAP.com).

"In that case, the video was the story," said Carroll. "There was nothing that we could write that was going to make that story more compelling than being able to watch two and half minutes of people falling off bicycles and running around as the ground shook."

Carroll will discuss these issues at the upcoming World Editors Forum. View other preview interviews here.

Source: Kathleen Carroll, Executive Editor and Senior Vice President, Associated Press

Nobody can exactly define what the media landscape will look like in ten years, but in the meantime, all traditional media companies seem to be experimenting with possible features. Here are a few of the latest examples from television broadcasters that could be useful for newspapers.

In the run-up to the US mid-term elections, many news organizations have been using interactives in their website coverage, and often taking advantage of Flash technology to do it.  Are these graphics effective?  Are they worth all the trouble?  Digital media experts Alberto Cairo, Mindy McAdams and Laura Ruel give their assessment, and offer tips for future news website content producers.

Despite their short existence, podcasts are one of the fastest growing new media of Web 2.0. Having only emerged in mid-2004, by the end of 2005 'podcast' was the New Oxford American Dictionary's word of the year. Newspapers looking to innovate have rapidly adopted podcasts as part of their everyday news production, some providing morning news summaries to which readers who may not have the time to read during their commute can listen. The Editors Weblog spoke with three editors in charge of their respective paper's daily podcasting to find out the steps they're taking in integrating podcasting into their newsrooms.

We've talked a bit about the bottom line in a couple of recent postings (here and here) and how it's being affected by new technologies and changing reader habits. In June, top newspaper executives at the Newspaper Association of America's (NAA) Future of the Newspaper conference acknowledged the transforming media landscape, heralding the necessity for investment in technology, giving more power to the consumer and innovation in general. But when reading through an account of the meeting in the NAA's magazine Presstime, it doesn't seem like they're sure what to do about it.

We've talked a bit about the bottom line in a couple of recent postings (here and here) and how it's being affected by new technologies and changing reader habits. In June, top newspaper executives at the Newspaper Association of America's (NAA) Future of the Newspaper conference acknowledged the transforming media landscape, heralding the necessity for investment in technology, giving more power to the consumer and innovation in general. But when reading through an account of the meeting in the NAA's magazine Presstime, it doesn't seem like they're sure what to do about it.

We've talked a bit about the bottom line in a couple of recent postings (here and here) and how it's being affected by new technologies and changing reader habits. In June, top newspaper executives at the Newspaper Association of America's (NAA) Future of the Newspaper conference acknowledged the transforming media landscape, heralding the necessity for investment in technology, giving more power to the consumer and innovation in general. But when reading through an account of the meeting in the NAA's magazine Presstime, it doesn't seem like they're sure what to do about it.

Reporters Without Borders has published the results of the competition for the blogs that best defend freedom of expression. The organization first chose a selection of 60 blogs and then asked Internet-users to vote for prize winners in different geographical categories.  Reporters Without Borders wanted to draw attention to the significant role that weblogs play in countries where traditional press is under tight control of the authorities.  To see the detailed results you can visit the organizations website, but here’s a quick summary:  In Asia, the Malaysian blog in English that discusses Malaysian politics and society, “Screenshot,” won.    From Africa and the Middle East, the blog in farsi that comments on Afghanistan’s political and social life called “Shared Pains” and the french blog from Morocco called “Al Jinane.” In Europre, the Italian blog “ICT lex.”  For the Americas, the American blog “Press Think” won. In Iran, the winning blog, “Mojtaba Saminejad”, just had its editor given a two year prison sentence. (see former posting) And in the international category, online readers voted for the German blog “Netzpolitik”.

Source: Reporters Without Borders

A recent survey presented on Grade the News concerning the quality of coverage related to youth issues is an interesting reminder of why accurate reporting is so important.  The Youth Media Council (YMC), dedicated to improving news coverage of youth and youth policy, and the Youth Justice Project (YJP), dedicated to developing formerly incarcerated youth into advocates for social change, monitored the San Jose Mercury News to evaluate the fairness and accuracy of stories about youth.  Youth coverage is so important to analyze because it shapes public attitudes and opinions about younger generations and because past surveys have found youth stories to be racially biased and disproportionately focused on crime.  Since San Jose is a very diverse area both ethnically and economically, the San Jose Mercury provided a particularly interesting case study.  Questions considered in the survey include: does the paper cover youth policy developments in juvenile justice, education, and child welfare? In reporting on youth, who gets to speak and who doesn’t? How is race/racism discussed in such stories? Does loaded language or do loaded images appear in stories about youth?

Here’s a quick summary of the survey’s findings. The Mercury didn’t have stories with loaded language or images. But the youth coverage did not focus enough on education, child welfare, or juvenile justice policies.  Stories tended to focus more on crime related incidents.  The youth stories also lacked youth sources often quoting adults more than youth.  Fortunately the adults who were quoted were not also part of the police force or politicians, but rather youth advocates. Not a single youth or youth policy story discussed racism or its impacts on youth. And when race was mentioned, the representation was not proportionate to the population of diverse ethic groups in the region.

In response, the YMC and the YJP gave some recommendations to the Mercury News to better discuss the important issues affecting youth.  The paper should re-instate the youth beat, which was once a temporary staff position.  Moreover, the position’s role should be deepened and the newspaper should form a tighter relationship with youth sources working on pertinent issues.   In particular, the paper should report on the impact of structural racism and poverty and the disproportionate impact of social policies on youth of color and their families.  The newspaper should focus on incorporating the voices of youth spokespeople and could perhaps add a column specifically devoted to or designed for youth. 

Source: Grade the News

If you hadn't noticed, more and more videos seem to be popping up on the World Wide Web, adding to the richness of the medium. This past week, news aggregator Topix.net added Reuters video streams to its list of sources, expanding its news gathering capabilities. The Editors Weblog conducted an email interview with Topix.net CEO and founder Rich Skrenta find out where Internet video is going. Be sure to join Skrenta, who will be speaking at the 12th World Editors Forum in Seoul, during the Editors BlogCong, from May 29 to June 1 at www.editorsweblog.org.

1. How important do you think video feeds will be to the future of Internet news?

Video content on television is obviously hugely popular with consumers. The Internet is primarily a text and static image medium today, but as the technology allows more users access to video it will become an essential part of the package. What's exciting is that the Internet can merge the benefits of a detailed written report from a newspaper with the richness of a video report from television, all in a single package.

Television is a linear experience -- you turn it on, watch for 30 minutes or an hour, and shut it off. Internet delivery is going to be much more about finding individual pieces that you want to watch, interspersed with other content.