Nationwide classroom No. 1: Writing for the Web

News writing for the web is a challenge. Not necessarily because it’s hard, but because it means changing the way you think. This lesson will be a foundation for future lessons on audio, video, Flash and all the fun skills you want to learn. But be patient. We’re taking this one step at a time.

Writing for the web is a different experience– you have to think about search engines and reader attention span and site traffic. This is about more than copying and pasting your stories from InDesign to your CMS. It’s about mastering an art that few in the college media industry get.

Headlines for the Web

The rules for print don’t work on Web for countless reasons, one being that people don’t always read stories full articles –or even full headlines– online. Eyetrack studies show that most readers skim the first few words of a headline or teaser. That’s why you need to let them know what they need to know in a few words.

For example, a headline like “The Road to Recovery” would make sense in print with a huge photo of construction on an old road. But, in an RSS feed, seeing that headline could refer to anything. You need to give it context, like: “City votes to fix roads, bridges.”

Test yourself as a writer. You’ve probably learned in journalism classes to be concise, to the point. A six-word headline is the true test of whether you can distill the essence of a story down to the basics.

Write real teasers, don’t copy the lead

If your newspaper site features summaries on the front page that tease to the main article, make sure those teasers are informative.

For example, look a teaser on the homepage for NYTimes.com reads:

 For President Obama, the positive outcome of the stimulus bill negotiation could either be an opening act for a more ambitious agenda or a harbinger of reduced expectations.

But the actual lead within the story gives more background, and is not-so-to-the-point:

It is a quick, sweet victory for the new president, and potentially a historic one. The question now is whether the $789 billion economic stimulus plan agreed to by Congressional leaders on Wednesday is the opening act for a more ambitious domestic agenda from President Obama or a harbinger of reduced expectations.

The reader who skims the front page without clicking that particular article will still get the gist of what it’s about without having to read on. The front page is not the place to mess with your readers’ minds. By creating a separate summary/excerpt for the front page, the writer can still get fancy/anecdotal/whatever in the actual article. Think of the front page summary as a subhead and you’ll be OK.

Hyperlinks are your best friend

Hyperlinks are what make the Internet a worldwide web. For those of you who blog, it may seem like second-nature to link away to other sources, but very few student newspapers are applying the principle within articles (I, too, am guilty).

If you refer back to the New York Times excerpt referenced above, notice how they hyperlink away to related articles about the stimulus plan and President Obama. It’s a good way to give your readers the option of having more context for the issues in the article. The more you link out, the more you’ll get links in return and the more eyes you’ll get on your content.

But more importantly, linking builds credibility. Sure, you can spell out the basics of a government document, but can you link to that original?

Rob Niles wrote a great guide on the Online Journalism Review about how to effectively link. A few points he makes:

1. Attribution: Link to the documents, databases, articles or videos to which you reference
2. Context: To avoid re-explaining yourself over, link out to prior articles written about the same issue
3. Easter eggs: Surprises for your readers

Changing the workflow

This sounds fine and dandy, but how do you put it into practice? It can be especially difficult if you have a solo web editor posting all the content to the web at the end of the night. That one person cannot be expected to research and find appropriate places to link to. And since you’re probably not quite ready to jump into the routine of having reporters post straight to your CMS, make it a process that starts in the brainstorming stage:

Reporters: When reporters are researching, they should keep a running spreadsheet of links to which they refer. If information from those Web sites make it into the story, reporters include that link in the Word Doc, Google Doc, Wordpress draft, or whichever method your newspaper uses. Whoever posts to the Web won’t have to research the links, but simply paste them in.

Copy editors: Copy editors need to think in terms of the web while they’re editing. A few questions copy editors can ask themselves:

• Is there potential for this to link elsewhere?
• Should I write a second headline for the Web?
• Is this a hard lead, or do I need to write something more condensed for a Web summary?

An even better solution than having a solo editor post to the web at the end of the night is having the copy editors do it progressively. Emily Ingram, the Web director at the Daily Nebraskan, recently took her copy editing staff to the Web. She reflected on this transition in her blog:

Emily’s advice:

• Make a step-by-step guide complete with screen grabs
• Plan in advance
• Stress that this will be a resume-building experience
• Nothing will ever go off without a hitch – and that’s A-OK

On-screen copy-editing

This is also where more staff restructuring comes in. The rush to get content online shouldn’t compromise writing quality. You still need to get as many eyes on your content as possible.

If your copy editors only come in during the evening, you have might have a problem– although easily solved. There needs to be someone on duty all the time. If you get your copy editors into the swing of on-screen editing, they can edit from anywhere with Internet access by using Google Docs or your CMS.

If you haven’t taken advantage of Google Docs, it’s a valuable tool for any newsroom. Instead of saving multiple, revised drafts of an article on a server in the newsroom, editing within one document can save endless headaches. I’ll be honest, the Mustang Daily newsroom isn’t to that point yet, but we’re getting there. We’ve increased our Google Doc usage infinitely this year. I’ve used the practice individually with other reporters and for group projects. Trust me: it works wonders.

You can see who is editing the document, the exact changes being made, and even revert back to older versions if someone makes a change you don’t like. Although with a CMS like College Publisher or Wordpress it may be harder for multiple people to edit simultaneously, there is still an autosave and revisions feature that can keep editors from writing over each others’ work.

Go Web first

A vital part of learning how to write for the Web is understanding that you don’t have to write a full 1,000 word exposé before the article is worthy of being posted. The beauty of the web is that you can progressively update. Keep your readers up-to-date with the same information you know, as it comes in.

If there’s a protest on campus, post a few paragraphs describing it (or even better, break the news on Twitter first). After you get reporters out there to cover it, post a quick update with a slideshow. Continue editing and posting, then by the end of the night, you have your story for print already complete and copy-edited.

And you don’t only have to do this for breaking stories. Any content that comes in should immediately be edited and posted. I know a lot of you are asking, “Why?” but the real question is “Why not?” You have the content. You have the medium for releasing the content to the world instantly. Nothing’s stopping you.

It won’t be easy

Overhauling the traditional way your newspaper has always functioned is going to be hard. There are going to be people who disagree (or those who agree but don’t follow through), so you’ll have to be persistent and proactive.

I’m going to try to make it as easy as possible for you. To assist in your push for a restructure, feel free to take the following slideshow to your newsroom. Really, I made it just for you:

Good luck and please let us know how it goes. If you’re in the process of changing your newsroom workflow, we want to know:

• What works for you and, what doesn’t?
• What strategies do you use when writing for the web?
• What struggles have you encountered?

Leave a comment or contact me at twitter.com/cicmintern or cicmintern(at)gmail(dot)com.

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