DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Why do newspaper websites suck so bad?

Seriously.......why do newspapers just fail on webpages? I was just on a local cleveland print media newspaper, and the adds and scrolls ruin the entire thing. It's slow, ugly, the banner is to big and makes reading articles difficult.

the Anchorage daily news is like that too. I personally think newprint has a natural link to internet news. I, for one, will always prefer the written word over the stupid podcasts that everyone seems to love now.

thoughts? What can people do to find better newsites?

I liked Cleveland.com before their most recent upgrade... now some of the upgrades just annoy me.

I hate that news sites are going to everything being a video.

Just let me read the story!

I hear ya! I like actually reading a story.

It was the cleveland.com site that drove me over the edge if you couldn't tell. I have liked that site for years, but the recent stuff is making it difficult to use. I can get the same news other places. I just always liked one site that had local news of all sorts.

I really wish they'd get their act together. I'd love to see great websites from newspapers or they won't survive. That would be a shame, because the central idea of what they are works.

Oh I do, but then I hear this annoying clicking as it blocks ad attempt after ad attempt. I know I could disable the sound from my blocker, but it's only newspaper sites that it goes nuts.

I know they need to make money, and do so by ads. I also know all other news sites on the web have the same issue, but are not as inempt or annoying in their presentations of ads. I know that maybe even they are going overboard to support the print department? (Though I'd be shocked if more than 50% of their profit came from internet ads). Given that though, they need to stop it, or keep losing readers in droves.

If they just toned it down, and used better tech I'd have no problem with them making money off of ads. The way it is now ruins everthing though.

Newspaper web sites are a sore spot with us right now. We left town for an extended period of time not too long ago, and we stopped our newspaper delivery, as we normally do. When we got our bill, we did not have a credit for the issues not delivered, like they have always done in the past. I called and what I was told was that they no longer give those credits because the paper is available on line.

Try Vindy.com. It flat out sucks. Try searching for news stories there.

The Vindicator, the paper itself, has long gone down the crapper and it's internet variation is no better. In fact, it has been hacked numerous times--google will on occasion alert you to it being a malicious site.

What I lament is the continuing decline of print media altogether.

The only thing I go to the Vindicator for is the local news. They usually have the story if I hear sirens or something.

I also check out the local TV station websites when I hear sirens as well. Often I can find information there the next day.

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Seriously.......why do newspapers just fail on webpages?

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Ahhhh, maybe because they want you to buy papers, where they make their money v reading a webpage where they can't.

I know most posters on here are anti smartphone but the mobile versions of sites are much easier to read than the desktop versions.

No adds and your article isn't broke down to 5 pages, it's on one.

True and you can still get it on a PC at mobile.cleveland.com

Exactly. Wall Street Journal and NY Times have paid on-line subscriptions.

You can have good, or you can have free, you can't have both.

Cleveland.com went back to not having that annoying top bar follow you around.

j/c
print journalism will be completely dead by 2016, IMO.

all the kids at college majoring in print journalism will have to switch to pr.

Ummm...no.

There will always be a place for journalism. It may be delivered in ways that we haven't even conceived yet but journalistic content will ALWAYS be here.