Register’s new website is opportunity for interaction

Posted on November 14, 2007 in Media by DM

des moines register revised homepage The Des Moines Register has been planning a website overhaul for quite some time, and the whole thing has been in beta testing for the past several weeks. Last week it seems the test-site got accidentally “leaked” to the live world, then for a week the old site was back. Now the new is back again, and I am really excited about all the opportunities for readers to interact with and be part of the site.

Why’s a website re-design important? Because I think the new product really and fully moves the Register into the position of once again being a leading community news source, only this time an interactive news source. The possibilities for a combined reporter- and reader-created publication are almost endless: readers can not only comment on every story and submit letters to the editor, they can establish a social networking-style profile and submit photos, articles, blog posts, videos and other original materials, all of which are available for review and critique by the entire online community.

The Register has been struggling along with the rest of the nation’s newspapers for the past few years, trying to figure out how user interactivity - made prolificly possible by the Internet - can be integrated into a print publication that clearly wants to hang onto its position of authority as the vehicle for news in the community.

They certainly didn’t start out on the right foot - at a time when bloggers were first pushing stories to the forefront of public discussion, Register columnists blasted bloggers for being pajama-clad losers who followed none of the rules of reporting or journalistic ethics.

They’ve since softened their position, having been hosting a wide variety of bloggers on their own website and opening up their publication to two-way dialog on every story via blog-style comments for the past couple of years.

They also hit a couple of high points, in my opinion, on coverage of local events: during the Des Moines Arts Festival, when shots were fired in an attempt to foil a car-jacking, and then again during the recent fire at Barton Solvents, the Register actually served as an effective vehicle for “breaking news.” They established one thread for the unfolding story, and updated that one thread as information became available. I really felt they had found a good balance between the daily print edition readable over a cup of coffee, and immediate reporting that didn’t have to wait for the next day’s edition to get read.

I’m not saying the Register doesn’t have problems - and I’m certainly not saying they’re always accurate or even unbiased. But I am saying that the new site at least recognizes and tries to incorporate opportunities for readers to really get involved, if they are so inclined, with the publication in a very “new media” sort of way. I think it’s good news that they’re even attempting it, and I’m anxious to see how it works for them.

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