Student of Social Media

The “ePolitics” study released by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that in 2004, among 10 major political news Web sites, there was a 12% increase in the number of news wire stories.  The reasoning cited for this increase is trifold: news wire stories can be published faster; news wire stories can be published without the restriction of column space; and, news companies have an increasingly small number of staff journalists to produce original content.

Is this acceptable rationale for a political news Web site to essentially contribute to the sea of sameness we call news?

Yes and no.  Yes, it may be acceptable rationale for sites to use some news wire stories, but only if they create original content to enhance the readers understanding of it.

I don’t think the sheer increase of usage of wire stories is evidence of a reversed progression of political news Web sites, like the study suggests.  I agree with Barb Palser that, “what sets a site apart is not only its basic information, but whether it provides additional depth and context in a way that’s easy to absorb” (The Web’s Campaign Contributions).   Fundamentally, I believe we should assess political news Web sites on how the news wire content is being re-packaged for the Internet.

Three notable examples of Web sites that offered multimedia extras and educational resources in concert with their wire copy during the 2004 election cycle are the Washingtonpost.com, USATODAY.com, and MSNBC.com.

When the Washington Post chose to publish the AP article, “Who Will Sen. John F. Kerry Pick to be His Running Mate” in 2004, they complimented it with the Veep-O-Matic.  The Veep-O-Matic was a tool that generated hypothetical vice presidents for Sen. John Kerry based on input criteria that was most important to the reader.  For example, if I preferred Kerry’s running mate to be a southern female with congressional experience, the Veep-O-Matic would let me know that I should cross my fingers that Kerry chose either Sen. Mary Landrieu or Sen. Blanche Lincoln.

Another example is when USATODAY.com picked up the AP story, “Republicans Dominate House.” Instead of simply running the news wire story, USA TODAY enriched it with an interactive tool. This tool enabled readers to search for House election results by a number of different criteria: state, gender, ethnicity, and incumbent trends.

Lastly, MSNBC.com chose to run numerous AP articles during the 2004 election, but didn’t do so in the absence of complimentary original content.  For example, the AP article, “Bush Ad Suggests Kerry Will Endanger the Country: Democrats Accuse the Bush Campaign of Using the Politics of Fear,” was enhanced by a video catalog of all the 2004 campaign ads.  Readers of this article were able to reference the ads for themselves, which could only further their understanding of the news wire article.

The examples of the “additional depth and context” political news Web sites offered beside their wire stories underscores one fact: just because political news Web sites are using wired stories, does not necessarily mean they are contributing to the sameness of news. The aforementioned Web sites offered supplementary content, in the form of visualizations and/or interactive tools, to enhance the reader’s experience of the various news wire stories.  Should reader engagement be the metric used to determine if political news Web sites are moving forward or backwards with the increasing utilization of news wire stories?

Maybe. In the context of the 2008 election, political news Web sites aimed high for reader engagement.  Though, I am unsure of the statistics regarding the number of new wire stories published, I would argue that they had no bearing on the site increasing page views.  I believe it was the proliferation of unique, multimedia tools that helped people better understand and interact with the news.  In my opinion, the most experiential tools in the 2008 election were the customizable electoral map on 270toWin and the platform to create and share your experience at the polls for PBS & YouTube’s Video Your Vote.

In the future, I believe political news Web sites will differentiate themselves based on the tools they are providing readers to digest the news stories they publish; whether they be news wire or not.

DISCLAIMER: This article is in no way meant to devalue investigative journalism on political news Web sites. Rather, it is to say that if sites have to use news wire stories, then repackaging them in a compelling way is acceptable.

Relevant site:  PC World’s Top 20 Election Day Web Sites