BEST PRACTICES: BREAKING NEWS IN PRINT/WEBBY DAVID ARKIN

GATEHOUSE MEDIA/NEWS& INTERACTIVE

How we cover breaking news and how we report it online and in print is very

different than it used to be. Or at least it should be.

1. THE WEB: Breaking news rules on the web. If you are covering a house fire

and you post a short blurb on the web, great. But the story is likely to develop and

readers, once they understand that you actually update content throughout the

day and follow stories like house fires, will come back to your site.

While I'm not suggesting you have to update a simple house fire story 10 times

throughout the day, the idea that the rest of the story would never be posted to

the web, to hold out for print, isn't advisable. Online readers have an expectation

that news that is breaking will be reported and updated and breaking news is the

kind of content that has the greatest potential for page view growth.

2. PRINT: Breaking news can go in print, but should't be in a traditional 5Ws

form. Yes, you're the paper of record and you should report on house fires and car

accidents in print. But to provide readers a 15-inch story that is more than 24

hours old - or older if you are a weekly - by the time they actually get the paper in

their hand, is not utilizing the platforms we're working with to their fullest.

Let's take the example of a bank robbery downtown. On the web you likely would

post an update as soon as you heard about it. As the story develops and

potentially someone gets arrested or a reporter is able to talk to bank employees

or photos trickle in, the story would grow in length on the web. It eventually

becomes a 10-inch story with online layers and elements. But that story as it's

written for the web just doesn't make sense to go in that form in print. For one,

it's old and we have to assume that many of our print readers are also following -

or want to if we'll do it - our breaking news coverage on the web. So in print, a

standalone photo or short story, maybe 4 inches, that reads kind of like an

extended cutline, would be fine. You could always package this kind of content in

your police blotter. Consider how placed in a breakout box, wrapping around

your blotter, breaking news content could be packaged in a short form.

An even better option for a good print story would be looking at trends. If this

was the third bank to be robbed in the last three months, an appropriate print

piece would be reporting that a bank was robbed, but focusing more on the trend

law enfacement are seeing, opposed to repeating what you have already done on

the web. Of course, these aren't hard rules. If a longtime downtown business goes

up in flames, you likely need to blow that story out on your front page or local

front. But that doesn't mean that you have to repeat everything that was in your

web version. The print product is for depth, understanding and color. That can be

achieved even when you're dealing with a huge breaking news story. Let that not

be the norm.

This is not about writing web-only and print-only stories. It's about taking the

reporting that's done and figuring out what makes sense for each platform.

3. PLANNING: Through our newsroom incubator program, we often encourage

newspapers to develop structure that would allow them to plan center pieces for

each day of the week. This is important because it creates a safety net and

encourages papers to think about content that breaks down issues, opposed to

following the news of the day in their center piece. Often newspapers will say, if

breaking news happens they want to make sure they can use their center piece for

that kind of content. Again, if downtown is on fire, yes, that makes sense. But if

we're talking about a day-old house fire or car accident, we wouldn't encourage

that. The center piece on your front page sends visual direction to what you think

is most important. A house fire is interesting for sure, but in terms of using your

newspaper as a guide to help readers navigate their lives and understand their

community, it's just not a good use of space.

Real estate in the print product should be dedicated to breaking down issues, not

regurgitating what you have already reported on the web. Understand that the

platforms are different and the goals behind each are different. Content

differentiation isn't just about not putting things on the web, but making choices

for each platform that allow newspapers to play to the strengths of both

platforms. For breaking news, these should be the rules: Online have quick,

updated news with multimedia. In print, have a short run-down of the day's

events, with more attention and space paid to what's coming up and what news

actually means to your readers.

David Arkin is the executive director of the News & Interactive Division for GateHouse

Media.