Every time the Joplin Globe introduces something new, Globe officials somehow manage to say just the wrong thing and they do it such an amusing fashion.
You might recall when the announcement was made that the Globe was offering a new weekly, the Joplin Herald, Publisher Dan Chiodo said it was necessary because there wasn't any room for Joplin news in the Globe. (So far, the Herald has lived up to the Globe's tradition by not including much Joplin news in its pages either.)
Today was the big day for the introduction of the Globe's revamped website. Quoting from Globe internet editor Dave Woods' article introducing the changes:
"It's been over a year in the making. Members of every department at The Joplin Globe have offered their views, ideas and technical expertise. Now, the newspaper's Web site - www.joplinglobe.com - is changing.
"On Tuesday, the Globe will debut a redesigned Web site featuring new community-discussion forums; a growing blogs section; streaming video and audio reports; expanded coverage of local, state, national and international news; more options for digital information delivery; and greater opportunities for the Globe's online advertisers to touch base with established customers and make connections with new ones."
It is amazing that for all of the Globe editors' exhaustive research, they came up with a website design that is virtually identical to the designs of such newspapers as the Corsicana, Texas, Daily Sun, the Norman Daily Transcript, the Cushing Daily Citizen, the Enid News and Eagle, the Ada Evening News, the Palestine Herald-Press, the Athens News Courier, the Oskaloosa Herald, the Niagara Falls Gazette, and, well, you probably get the idea. All of the above listed newspapers are owned by the same company, CNHI, that owns the Globe.
The Globe has maintained its highly successful reader comment form, which it does not appear is being used by the other CNHI newspapers, but for the most part, what Globe editors have characterized as months of extensive discussions to give Globe readers a website specifically designed for their needs, has been a master plan by someone at CNHI to have all of its websites come from the same cookie-cutter mold.
Even worse, Dave Woods' article contained no mention of the redesign of CNHI's websites, making it appear as if this was a Globe project.
The only mention of this in any Joplin publication came from this blog on June 16, 2005, when I printed information from a Market Newswire article in which Michael Reed, at the time CNHI CEO, described the upcoming changes.
Ironically, Reed is now the CEO of Liberty Group Publishing, owner of the Globe's competitor, the Joplin Daily.
That just means all the departments of the Globe had a hand in developing the new web site for the Enid News and Eagle, which is still technically the local coverage area according to Chiodo and Ed.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the Joplin Daily, much like the innards of most Liberty papers, is a cookie cutter too. Welcome to corporate newspapering.
You won't get any argument from me. Liberty undeniably uses a cookie-cutter format with its websites.
ReplyDeleteHopefully, the Globe will take the template handed down from corporate and tweak it a bit to fit their needs. I know that's what we did at the Press. For example, you'll note the Carthage Press obituary section goes back several years. That's something we changed because I know our community's residents and readers valued that.
ReplyDeleteTrue, and the Press also retains its guestbook feature, which is especially appreciated by out-of-state readers. The best part of the Globe's revamping is that the newspaper has retained its reader comment section, something I did not notice on other CNHI websites.
ReplyDeleteAs with much of The Globe's recent efforts -- The Herald, "expanded" Sunday paper, etc. -- something tells me the appropriate company response should be "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
ReplyDeleteHey, Globe your site is boring and harder to navigate that the older one!
ReplyDelete