The New York Times’ Public Editor Byron Calame, who fills the role of ombudsman at the paper, has this opinion today about the tension between continuous online reporting and the arguably higher caliber articles that appear in the print edition of the paper.
Typically “continuous” news reporters at the Times prepare breaking news stories for the web, but specialists write the pieces that appear in the printed version — of course the print version articles also appear on the web, just much later.
Often the digital news reporters consult with the experts in preparing their bare-bones articles for the web, but Calame thinks it’s not often enough. He cites once instance in which a reporter posted an online piece regarding jobs data that ended up contradicting, at least in its interpretation of the underlying trends highlighted by the data, the print version of the same story because in the race to get something online, thoughtful analysis fell through the cracks.
Wire services, however, got the trend right, which leads Calame to recommend that the Times should fill its web-based hole with wire services more often, rather than have time-stressed online staff put out pieces that don’t meet the Times’ standards. In essence, Calame is arguing that online reporters be given more time to think in order to uphold the Times’ reputation for the highest quality journalism.
As top editors ponder how best to deliver the full range of Times articles to the Web 24 hours a day, it seems clear to me that the reporters nailing down important breaking news stories on their beat will continue to need some time to report and think. Expecting them to quickly crank out and keep updating a bare-bones version for the Web could mean that a final article of traditional Times quality will be less than it could have been.
Cynthia Brumfield at 3:33 PM|Comments(0)
Blogs We Read
