Bad linking practices

Yoni Greenbaum (editor on the verge) highlights an example of poor linking practices from the New York Times. The Times mentions YouTube videos that are viral efforts to promote the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s dreadful “Thriller” album (to each his/her own). Greenbaum notes:

The article has visible links to Sony, Kanye West and Fergie (artists who both appear on the a Thriller tribute album) and Tesco. And thanks to their partnership with Answer.com, you can double-click on any term or word for a definition. But nowhere were there any links to the videos on YouTube, nor did the Times decide to embed them.

I’ve written before about the confusing link habits of big newspapers, and try to spread the gospel of linking whenever I get the chance (as I did this past weekend at our CICM Workshop). It’s more than a little frustrating to see how ineffectual these big media outfits have been at linking outside their own properties. WaPo and NYT, I’m specifically looking at you.

Actually inserting links into stories takes work. There are tools being developed that will “scrape” some similar content to place alongside a story, but nothing beats the judgment of an editor or reporter who can find the links and insert them manually.

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