With news changing every minute, why do news sites like
The New York Times remain mostly unchanged throughout the day?
Scott Karp writes, "Why shouldn't the WHOLE site -- especially the homepage -- be aligned with the web, instead of aligned with the static print product?"
Instead of display the news by importance, Karp suggests a blog-like method of arranging the news in reverse chronological order so viewers can read what's new. Better yet, news sites can offer different default page options like
Digg: articles ranked by importance, by reverse chronological order, and by readers' favorites.
Though The New York Times and other newspapers have blogs, their links are not prominently featured on the homepage.
Karp brings up the debate of
editor vs. reader discretion, and one has to question the consequences of his proposition. The New York Times certainly has the staff to constantly update their website, but hundred of new updates a day would create a chaos of news, not a well-organized news site. Also, if readers voted their favorite articles to the top, The New York Times could resemble a celebrity gossip site, which is not the purpose of news sites. The
job of editors is to filter out articles so that readers get the important news, which is why news sites are arranged the way they are.
Source:
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