Another thing that makes me go hmmmm?!?!?!

Back in June a wrote about "things that make me go hmmmm?!?!?!". I have another item to add to that list.

I really like to dislike that article
When a site allows me to "Rate this Story", what am I rating? Is it the content of the article, the choice of words the reporter used, whether I thought it was "fair and balanced" or is their some other standard?

For instance, 4,000+ readers have rated a recent MSNBC article on Hurricane Dean. The average rating is 4 out of a possible 5. Hmmmm?!?!?! O.K., I just do not know, and I hate to admit it, but when I just don't know, i just don't vote.

A look at Gannett's Information Center

Wired has published a good article about Gannett’s Information Center efforts. I think this is a must read for everyone in the Newspaper industry. Here are the key points I took from the article.

• Need to question every assumption about how a newspaper gathers, writes, and distributes news.
  
• Content mix of professional journalism and amateur contributions is the future.
  
• More than half of the advertisers in cincyMOMS are new to Cincinnati Enquirer.
  
• Two ‘Big Ideas’ of effort; Involve Readers in every aspect of process and take ‘hyper-local’ approach to news coverage.
  
• Try different approaches, submissions grew after third attempt at call to action title; “Get Published” was what worked.
  
• Readers submission do more than drive page-views online, it provides content for community papers.
  
• Request for assistance with investigative piece provided access to experts, traffic growth, community engagement, and forced fixes to the issue covered.
  
• Readers transform to active participants online.
  
• Initial focus was making effort work editorially, now concentrating on parallel strategies for advertising.
  
• Des Moines Register had 184 new advertisers into the paper by march 2007, as sales increased 44% over the previous year.

As a side note. I had to chuckle after I printed the Wired article available from their "Print" icon on the story page. The placement of a Leader-Board advertisement on this page has defeated the purpose of having a print friendly version. The width of the ad has blown the page layout beyond a standard 8 1/2 X 11 page size and you lose the last 1/2 inch of the article when printing. Then again, perhaps this is just another one of those "experimental layouts" from Wired!