2010-02-02
The Breaking Newspaper
Phil Gyford’s currently working on a project to write a newspaper covering the week’s news, although it seems to be having a bumpy start.
At least I was able to provide a useful link, to the Guardian’s index of ‘main section’ stories. This is updated daily with the contents of the paper edition, and I tend to prefer it to the front page for the reasons Phil talks about: it’s the serious stuff you expect from the Guardian, with fluffier content relegated to G2, and blogs entirely absent.
There’s another handy benefit. By having to scan a full list of headlines, I’m forced to look at more of what’s going on, in just the same way that the paper edition leads to one seeing stories that might be overlooked in a conventional front-page view.
Still, to my mind, there’s a drawback to this page: it’s only updated once a day. Is there a way to update it more frequently, but avoid falling into the same traps as the now-conventional web front page? I think so, but I’m not sure I expect to see it.
What if there was a page, at a URL that perhaps indicates it’s for tomorrow’s paper, where stories were put into the same place as they would take in the paper edition, if it were to be printed right then? The page would start blank in the morning, gain a skeleton of stories during the day, and then there’d be a frenzy of activity in the evening as the final stories landed, were ordered, and put into place.
Of course, I’m assuming several things here. Would a newspaper be willing to be that open with its processes? Do stories arrive in a suitable format? (My guess is that, at this point, the answer is largely yes; stories are published on the website that later emerge in print, but there must be exceptions. Still, you could always have an unlinked placeholder until the following morning.) What about exclusives, or editorials? (Again, placeholders - generically labelled - might be an answer here).
I’m not really expecting this to ever happen, but if it did, I’d be quite a fan, I think.
