When I was on the News Gazette Web site tonight, this caught my eye:
http://news-gazette.com/scene/gallery/505
In case you are not familiar with it, the News Gazette makes photo galleries from time to time of people posing at community events. I've seen this section before, but I got to thinking about it tonight. Why are pictures of people posing with their dachshunds appropriate to put on a news site.
I see both sides to this argument. The truth is, 30 snapshots of people with their dogs at a festival doesn't fit the traditional definition of news. It's not going to win a Pulitzer or considered a work of great journalism. It's something to look at and probably won't have much of an effect on the viewer.
Or will it?
I love dogs and that small thumbnail photo at the bottom of the page attracted my attention (and I looked through the whole album). But if I were one of those people at Daschiefest 2008, I know I would be drawn to the News Gazette site to see if my face made it to the Web. And if it did, I would probably show my family and friends. And then they would all go to the site, too. And then suddenly, the news site has more traffic and maybe they click on one of the other articles and learn about something else the paper produced. Suddenly, the simple photo effected the viewer, even if in a small way.
In a time with budget cuts and layoffs in all parts of the industry, we have to learn to adapt. We have to learn what the people want and give it to them. If posting pictures of locals at events is the way to draw people to a site, then so be it.
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2 comments:
You raise a good point. Everyone loves to see themselves in the paper, and by posting photos online, the news source can pull more people into their site. However, the only problem I see is the question of where do you stop? Do you only do photo galleries once a month? Once a week? Only for big events?
I think if a Web site does too much of this photo coverage, it will decrease readers' perception of the site as a good source of news. I can't picture any newspaper or site going to that extreme, but it could happen.
I also feel like the News Gazette is slightly compromising its news coverage just to get people to look at their site. Instead of placing a thumbnail leading to a more important story, the editors decided to run the photo gallery.
I'm not saying the photo gallery idea is necessarily bad, but I think the editors can use the space in a better way.
This semester I'm taking a class that creates a digital newsroom partnership between the University and The News-Gazette. Strange thing is, I've actually shot one of these "Scene and Be Seen" galleries for the Arthur Cheese Festival.
It's hard to draw the line on what is credible and what isn't. Just because news organizations have these photo galleries doesn't mean they're not credible. Wouldn't readers think a news organization is more credible if they're constantly seeing themselves or their friends, families, etc. being represented in such galleries, especially in smaller to medium markets.
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