Sometimes,
the person commissioning online
journalism will be a marketeer. The
process will go something like this:
lMarketing
executive e-mails to say: “can you
write articles for us?”
lYou
say you’re interested.
lThey
ask you to quote.
lYou
agonise over quoting too high or too
low.
lThey
agree a figure and set a (vague) brief,
with no deadline.
lYou
try to narrow them down on the brief,
write an article, and it goes to a
committee where it gets passed around,
then is eventually published a month
later.
There
can be more reliance on the journalist
to define what the news element of a
story is, what will be interesting and
relevant to external readers.
The
more imaginative companies have twigged
that getting an objective outsider to
write lively articles about a company
gives far more credibility to a site.
This
view is not uniformly held, however.
Some senior executives still struggle to
understand the basics of the internet
and e-mail. They have seized on the
dot.com bust as evidence that new
technology is a waste of money and will
only sanction the barest investment in a
brochure website.
Other
companies have on-going feuds over the
strategic direction of their site,
meaning that commissioned articles may
get binned in a fit of office political
pique. Similar, in a way, to being
spiked because of extra advertising.
It
is hard to prove that website journalism
increases revenue, but companies who
have taken on the concept wholeheartedly
say it is making them money.
They
are particularly keen on e-mail
newsletters, which are cheap and quick
to produce, getting right in front of
the customer’s nose and able to
contain interactive features such as
surveys or competitions.
As
a journalist, you may feel queasy about
being part of such a full-on marketing
drive. But then publishing is rarely
altruistic. As a website journalist,
you’re increasing the company’s
influence on its customers, adding to
its image as a trustworthy source of
information.
So
there is a subtle tilt away from the
conventional journalistic role: in print
publications, the journalism serves
(from the advertiser’s point of view)
as a credible backdrop to show what good
company they keep, whereas on company
websites, the news sections are often
given prominence and advertising kept to
a minimum.
The
credibility issue is crucial. Website
visitors are looking for authority,
objectivity, accuracy, currency and
audience-awareness - all criteria which
journalists are trained to deliver, but
which marketeers and PRs are less good
at. Journalists know how to spin, but
their aim is generally to make a story
more current, lively and fresh, rather
than to make a company look good. When a
company can harness this skill without
neutering it, the journalist can write
great stories, the company appears more
credible and website visitors get what
they’re after.
Website
journalism means more than reproducing
print articles online. The medium
demands more concision, more varied
typography - more bold headings and
subheadings, more bullet points, more
white space - than print. It means using
hyperlinks to allow readers to scan
summaries before clicking through to a
longer article. So website journalists
need to understand the technology
underlying the internet, although it’s
rare to be asked to use HTML.
You
may be asked to comment on design
issues, so a broad awareness of
different website models is useful: what
kind of navigation works best, what sort
of illustrations are quick to download.
My first website -
www.davidnicholson.com - was designed by
a friend, but produced a rush of
companies and publications asking me to
write about the internet or for their
internet sites because it was an
innovative, fun site.
Even
today, few journalists have credible
sites of their own. I’d definitely
recommend putting one up, especially if
you’re serious about writing for
websites. Companies like to see that you
can walk the walk.
S
ome
contract publishing companies have begun
moving over into website content
provision, which is a pretty natural
step for them. But they still retain a
sheen of PR-speak, since most contract
publishing has a eunuch quality to it,
which transfer to a new medium does not
solve.
The
fracturing of media in the digital age
is creating myriad new opportunities for
journalists. Writing for company
websites is just one of these but an
important one, since it cuts out the
traditional middleman role of the
advertising or PR agency, allowing
companies to appreciate the skills and
qualities of journalists and raising the
standard of corporate communications.
The more company website managers come
to understand this, the less hype,
flannel and jargon there will be on the
internet, which has to be a good thing.
David
Nicholson formed WordsOntheWeb.co.uk
with fellow freelance journalist Richard
Willsher
