Comments on: Washington Post: A river may no longer run through it

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By: d.digital

d.digital — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:26:15 +0000

To be digital or not to be…is no longer a question. Technology is like a steam roller, if your part of the road, your going to get ran over.
I use to sell hard copies of my music out on the street, but now I’ve become a bit more tech savy. I’ve built a website that sells my music for 25cents. With over 12000 hits a month, it pays for it self and then some. I still sell hard copies, but not as much since I was able to merge this online store with my outside store. Now profits have increased dramatically. SO MERGE ALREADY!!!

By: Alfred Hermida

Alfred Hermida — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:39:16 +0000

There are benefits to having separate online news operations, especially when these new entities are seeking to establish themselves as legitimate forms of journalism.

As a former founding news editor at the BBC News website in 1987, there were significant advantages to having a separate newsroom from TV and radio. While many of the journalists came from other parts of the BBC, the website attracted those who were interested in exploring how online could enhance journalism.

Even in 1998, we create a special on the Clinton impeachment that included elements that have only recently being adopted by other news outlets, such as timelines and multimedia: http://is.gd/fTho

An important factor to consider is institutional support. In the BBC’s case, the director general was a strong advocate for the internet.

With institutional backing established, the team at the website were relatively free to develop online journalism. Being physically and psychologically separate from the established radio and TV newsrooms was an important contributory factor towards the success of the BBC News website.

By: The benefits (and drawbacks) of keeping web and print separate » Nieman Journalism Lab » Pushing to the Future of Journalism

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:57:13 +0000

[...] New York Times’ Derek Willis left a critical comment on our Washington Post post that’s worth a look. An excerpt: …the fact that WPNI was setup separate from the Post [...]

By: Deryck Hodge

Deryck Hodge — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:56:28 +0000

I have to agree with Derek here in that these arguments are always so one-sided. And we have been here before, have we not? Wasn’t it just a few years ago that everyone was all about separate operations like the Post’s, and now everyone is all about merging. I’m a former WPNI employee who happens to think merging is probably a good call. I am, however, disappointed in all the trend chasing and lack of any thoughtful, fresh perspective on such issues.

By: Derek Willis

Derek Willis — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:17:52 +0000

Regardless of the aims ascribed to Don Graham by Erik Wemple (and repeated here without any apparent vetting), the fact that WPNI was setup separate from the Post did yield many benefits for washingtonpost.com. Having worked at both places, I know and respect the leaders of both. But there is no way – zero chance – that washingtonpost.com would have been permitted to try many of the things it did (some of which failed) had it been run by the editors of the paper.

That freedom, which in my experience Don Graham did quite a bit to guard, was essential in the ability to attract talented people and allow them to do innovative things. To simply state that the arrangement “has never served the Post well” may accurately reflect the opinion of some of my former colleagues at the paper, but it does not accurately reflect reality. Wemple’s piece, as “wonderful” as it was, also tended to be one-sided in that regard.

I agree with Liz Spayd that the situation is not optimal, and I am optimistic about the outcome of merging the newsrooms. But your piece, like Wemple’s, ignores the benefits that came from allowing WPNI to grow outside the structure of the Post, and cheapens the discussion by relying on simplistic reasoning.