[...] http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/06/what-counts-more-than-desig/ [...]

[...] the end of a separate post about attracting an online news audience, Langeveld emphasizes that communication, not design for its own sake, should be foremost on the mind of those who run news websites: It’s not about how sexy-looking [...]

[...] continuing my response to Phil Buckley’s excellent question: “If you were starting a news organization today, where would put your initial [...]

(I just discovered Neiman Lab.) This is an old post but the content and comments were very compelling. I thought everyone might be interested in this short TEDTalk on how design can save news’papers’.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jacek_utko_asks_can_design_save_the_newspaper.html

[...] Langevald, of the Neiman Journalism Lab, thinks that design is not the only thing attracting an audience to an online publication. For him, connecting with the audience is more important than impressing readers with design. He [...]

Once you’re there and interacting, you can start to build that community and relationship with your readership.

And once you’ve built the relationship, it will become relatively easy to discern what new beats and data-driven projects your readers want from you.

Just one step to start changing your business model. :)

[...] a comment on the second post, Phil Buckley, whose commentary I had quoted and linked to, asked: “If you were starting a [...]

[...] What counts more than design in attracting an online news audience? [...]

Readers: Phil Buckley is the Phil mentioned in the post, of 1918.com

On the other hand, I agree that mainstream news websites need to engage readers and establish a two-way dialogue. Individual situations obviously vary, but what I’m seeing lately is not the lack of means to comment on stories or contact reporters. Rather it’s that the story content is not compelling enough to prompt a response. Why this is true raises yet another set of complex issues: some are stylistic, some are technical.

As a matter of moving the subject of reader engagement forward, I think journalists should be looking at the two following basic questions:

The first is how do you determine in any given market when the existing news platform has become so out of touch with its readership that it is no longer worth continuing? On one hand, you might have an organization with decades of collective wisdom about a given community it would be a shame to jettison. On the other, that same organization may have grown so elitist that it will never recover the base of reader loyalty it might once have had.

The second is what are the most functional topics and most appropriate scale for reader dialogue? Broad-based reader dialogue is nothing new and goes back at least as far as FidoNet. To this day, no one has really gotten a handle on what makes a “good” reader group. Groups targeted at topics too tiny to matter go moribund because no one engages. Others reach and maintain a critical mass which provide lively, informed, and congenial discussion from a variety of viewpoints. Still others reach and go beyond critical mass until they become so large that the reader group becomes more concerned with maintaining consensus than it does with listening to informed but dissenting voices.

I think in 10 years we’ll be looking back at this era the way we now look back at the first few years of cell phones and realize that change was coming no matter what the old established players did.

If you were starting a news organization today, where would put your initial efforts?

However, if you’re saying design has no effect on numbers, I would have to disagree:

http://www.webdesignerwall.com/general/users-place-more-weight-on-design/

Another terrific post. I also seldom go on NPR’s site, but I know it is there and can go if I want to or need to. So engaging people and building community is the key. I learned that as a pastor..

-Rick