Wednesday, January 14, 2009

CREATE A HYPERLINK ALREADY

I don't get to read the newspaper everyday, but I do enjoy perusing the opinions page. Why, I don't know, as it seems it is nothing more than an anti-gay Sunday School class. Be that as it may, I still like to read it.

On any given day some opinion-holder is writing in response to someone's previous opinion letter. Unless you read it everyday, and what's the point of that when you have a scaled back paper and a skeleton crew of a newsroom? – you have no idea the references.

Anyway, if the paper spends all this time posting the articles online, why do they not create a hyperlink to the previous opinion letters to which the current writer speaks? It seems like the sensible and newsworthy thing to do.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

After we left Springfield, I liked to check the N-L web site and find our what was happening in Springfield. I gave up many months ago: their web site is the worst of any (non-Gannett) site on the web.

What IS it with those flashing gifs? That's so last century. The home page looks like a bad ransom note.

Just my opinion. Not that you asked!
:-))

Jason said...

I agree. Hyperlinks to related columns inline with the current piece would make it easier to follow conversations.

Busplunge said...

Sometimes the comments appear, most times I get an abbreviated web page, even when going from page to page within hte site.

frustrating, almost as frustrating as the paper in the gutter during rainstorms and trying to dry it out in a microwave.

I don't find the sn-l web site very user friendly.

Anonymous said...

Busplunge, you're absolutely correct. The N-L web site is so user UNfriendly that I gave it up completely and now read only the local blogs!

Thanks, y"all! You have the REAL scoop on the burg.

Anonymous said...

They don't have enough people left to adequately cover the news let alone write hyperlinks.

Anonymous said...

Be easy on those of us that are left. The fact that Gannett has decided to ax the most experienced among us has resulted in an unfair backlash against us younger reporters who try our darndest to connect with the city, cover the news, and get by with a corporate website template that is restrictive.

admin said...

Chris,

I feel for you and the rest of the skeleton news crew left. I've worked in a newspaper newsroom and it is very hard work. You have my sympathies.

You remind us that much of what is decided is made not in the newsroom but in some office somewhere. Including that very unfriendly website.

I doubt most people hold the newsroom employees responsible for the idiocy going on in the News-Leader/Gannett. I certainly do not. How can a small group of news gatherers cover this entire area and do it well? They cannot. Try as you might, you simply cannot. But that does not seem to matter to Gannett. They cut and cut, shrink and shrink, and add more user-generated junk, seemingly forgetting what the purpose of a paper really is.

I'm glad you still have a job.

Anonymous said...

Jack,

Thanks for the sympathies and good thoughts. I know I for one could really use them. I like everyone I work with and it is sad to see us all be continually whittled down by a company that from the looks of it, is just trying to survive.

Every time you think of our website, think of how tough it is for us all to add content to a clunky system.

That being said, I appreciate that much more the people (like you Jack) that still stand by the local N-L folks in a tough time. Thanks for recognizing the real underlying cause of our woes.

I'd write more, but I'm off to Circuit City to find the deals before they shut it down :)