Muffled "Voice"

Site evaluation

I'm going to take a page from Tracy Swartz's book and review the site of the newspaper I used to work for: The Voice Ledger. I suppose it's the opposite of the assignment, because I don't think the site is a particularly good one. I used to place content on the site www.voiceledger.com and I think the system's flaws hindered both the producer and consumer. I have a lot to critique, so I thought it would be a good site to use.

The weekly paper uses a service called Zwire, and the Web site is managed by the newspaper's corporate owner in another state. The (small) staff of the newspaper simply load stories written for the hard copy onto the Web site by copying and pasting from word documents. This work is done by the writers and editors; there is no web specialist. The producers of the newspaper have virtually no input into the layout of the site.

I am fascinated by the variety of ways different newspapers utilize their Web sites and I want to write my final paper on that topic. For instance, the New York Times charges for archived articles, while other sites do not. Some newspapers' Web sites include all of the hard copy's content, while others do not. I would like to see if the size of the newspaper (circulation) makes a difference.

Back to the evaluation. I will try to read the site as an outsider, even though I know how it's put together. I think the newspaper was fortunate in getting to use the name as the Web site. When you type in the address, however, you're actually taken to the site through Zwire, so what appears in the address bar is this: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=1721.

Since most, if not all, of the readers of the site live in the circulation area, I think it adds credibility that the site can be reached by typing the name of the newspaper. (The credibility of the site is only as good as the credibility of the newspaper.) The name could create problems, however, because the actual name of the newspaper is "The Voice Ledger." If you try typing www.thevoiceledger.com in the address bar, you get a message that the server could not be found.

The layout of the Web site looks nothing like a newspaper. Unlike www.nytimes.com, www.newsobserver.com, or even www.theonion.com, The Voice Ledger Web site doesn't use a masthead or masthead font for the name of the newspaper. Instead, it says VoiceLedger.com across the top of a bar with options such as news, classified, directory. The name does not imitate newspaper type. Also, the Web site does not use a central photo, like most newspaper Web sites do. Instead, there are sample photos and an invitation to "purchase photos online," (this is new since I worked there).

I'm not advocating a direct imitation of a newspaper's front page. The new medium calls for new strategies. That being said, newspaper layouts have been developed purposely to attract attention to the most important elements. For instance, the headline for the lead story is sometimes larger than other headlines and it is usually at the top of the fold, sometimes stretched over all columns. This layout helps the reader. Large photos attract attention as well, but as stated in the readings, words take precedence over images in this medium.

Below the name, there is a list of the top news stories. Each story has a headline, with a link to the article, available by clicking on the headline or "full story." It should be noted that one of the headlines has a typo: "Owners of historic buidlings recognized." Typos like this can hurt a site's credibility, even though we all know what the headline should say.
The text of the stories is the same as the full text article in the hard copy of the newspaper. Some of the stories are rather long and have subheads, but these aren't bolded, in color, or a different size from the text of the story, so they don't really help when scanning. I don't think the articles should be cut by 50% as some have suggested, but I think it would be good to include some sort of summary, with a link to the full text. The articles contain no hypertext. I'm not sure how it could be incorporated, but it may help when reading about an ongoing story to have a link to past articles on the same story.

I think it would be helpful if there were a link to the reporter's e-mail. There is a button to push to e-mail to a friend or send feedback. I wonder if anyone else has the same pet peeve as I do. When I click on someone's name, and the computer automatically tries to open up a mail server, rather than simply listing a person's e-mail address, it drives me crazy. What do you do if you are on a public computer, using Web-based e-mail, such as hotmail or yahoo? And why isn't that person's e-mail listed anywhere on the site? I think newspapers should have a directory of staff members with e-mail. There's probably a good reason they don't. Maybe they want to protect the reporters from unwanted feedback??

On www.voiceledger.com, only a few "top" stories are chosen for inclusion. Readers must buy the newspaper for all the news. The arts and entertainment section, Weekend, only includes brief snippets of articles, followed by this text: For the entire cover story, pick up a copy of Taconic Weekend, which can be found on newstands now in the Gazette Advertiser, The Putnam County Courier ... or call (845) 677-8241 to subscribe.

On the left of www.voiceledger.com is a list of links to sports and other sections, but links like business and community news have no content. I would add a button reading "contact us." As it is now, you have to click on "our newspaper," and then click on "contact us." Even then, if you are not sending an engagement, wedding, or birth announcement, you have to click on another link "contact us." This takes you to a form. (I don't know about anybody else, but I hate these forms. I'd rather write an e-mail.)

On the right, there is a row of cover shots from the local town guides. You can view one of them page by page by clicking on the cover. They appear to be PDF files loaded to the Internet. This format illustrates a lack of sophisticated technology, I think. If the people uploading the articles had some knowledge of the technology available, I think they could create a much more attractive, useable site. As it is now, it's a cookie cutter, generic Web site. I think the corporate owner is worried about losing circulation numbers if full text articles are published on the web. I tend to think a stronger Web site might attract more readers, both online and in print.