Putting the Web First, 24/7

Jeff Jarvis reports that the Guardian, which has taken the lead in so many other online innovations, has now proclaimed itself a 24/7, Web-first news organization. This is how all news organizations—especially in print—should be thinking.

A few weeks ago, Los Angeles Times Editor Jim O'Shea made a similar internal announcement, declaring that henceforth LATimes.com--not the print paper--will be the company's primary vehicle for delivering news.

These are steps in the right direction, though the reality is that dragging notoriously change-resistant newsrooms into this new model will be a significant challenge. Still, the sentiment is correct. The once-a-day print newspaper is a legacy of a bygone era. Readers now expect to get the latest news 24 hours a day online, and any news organization that isn't operating in that mode does so at its peril. This seems obvious--but precious few traditional news organizations seem to get it, or are willing to make announcements as bold as those that have come from the Guardian and L.A. Times. What are they waiting for?

Comments

[John Robinson]

For some of us little guys, we're attempting to build to that level eventually, but don't anticipate the page views -- yet -- to justify the 24/7 staffing. And, with a local focus, we don't have the sort of local news that breaks between, say, 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.

But we are a step ahead of the big guys in one area: my experience is that newsrooms in smaller markets aren't nearly as change resistant as the big guys.