Elections are coming up.

Before you snore through another meeting about elections, read what Jack Lail and Scott Karp wrote about link journalism in the Neiman Reports, now online.

Some newsrooms still are living in old school molds of having the “scoop” – real “His Girl Friday” stuff from the 1920s.  But Lail and Karp make good arguments for why those notions can’t fly anymore.  But by helping readers navigate through all the voices on the web, our tradition as a trusted source may well save us.

Karp:

“This is not just a responsibility, it’s an opportunity, for when journalists select the best of the Web’s political coverage, they are able to uphold their standards of verifying and validating information. When newsrooms distribute what they find on the Web, they can maintain their relevance as a destination for people interested in politics by becoming a gateway to the best of all political coverage, not just their own.”

In Knoxville, Lail and his folks put it to the test with great success:

“The idea was elegantly simple: supplement presidential campaign coverage with links to other content. …

…Here’s what it took to make this happen:

·         Number of sit-down meetings: None.

·         Number of conference calls: None.

·         Number of contracts or releases: None.

·         From concept to execution: A couple of days.”

So skip that meeting all together.

This entry was posted by Ron Sylvester on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 10:25 pm and is filed under Inspiring Work, Learning, Newspaper Web Sites, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.