Website Analysis of an Online Newspaper

¶ … Online News

The website that I am evaluating is that of the Utica Observer-Dispatch: http://www.uticaod.com/

I chose this site because it represents what a lot of smaller town papers are capable of. They are not the NYT, nor do they reside behind a paywall like the Wall Street Journal, which on that basis alone might be the worst newspaper website in the world. You have to read it for it to be useful. The Utica Observer-Dispatch seeks to supplement the print edition of the paper with timely content.

First, the structure of the website is fairly basic for a newspaper site. The different sections of the paper are outlined at the top -- news, sports, entertainment, life, opinions, etc. Within these, there are sub-indices that make searching around the site a little bit easier. The stories are listed in columnar fashion, which is low-tech, a little bit old-fashioned, but a functional way of allowing the visitor to see a number of different stories. In some sections, the stories can be quite old, where there is no new content to bump the older content from the page. So in terms of the basic presentation, this paper illustrates that there are limits to what can be done on a small budget, and the focus is clearly on getting the content out to the audience.

A good web edition will allow for content to be posted when it is ready. So if there is a big traffic accident at 3pm that is going to mess up rush hour, that is something that should be on the online edition, even if it is not big enough of a story to make the print edition. The point is that the paper's brand is still the go-to source for news in the area. In this case, that's actually the motto: "The Mohawk Valley's Information Source." The front page of this website does have the latest news, published stories as the news is released. There was a story about a local brewery and this was updated as the story developed throughout the day. A local reporter was sent to gather information and then post the story, which will appear in tomorrow's print edition of the paper.

Blogs and other such content are also common in news sites. Some other sites have more formalized blogs, but the Utica Observer-Dispatch does make fairly extensive use of this media form, as a means of getting more content to the readers, and having a steady stream of content available. It is important that even with the blogs the authors know that they are journalists as well, and in that the blogs are a little bit weak. They are usually used for opinion or fluff pieces, and the content is simply not that compelling. It carries with it the paper's brand, but in some cases is using freelance writers for other areas, so there may even be a question of relevance for the average person reading.

Another aspect of the website is that it should drive traffic either to advertisers or to the paper edition. After all, newspapers do not make money on website content. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case here. Even things like classifieds, which are revenue-generating, seem shunted off to the side in the web design.