Breaking news website: TV vs. Newspaper

In the news website contest a key piece of the puzzle is breaking news. For local news websites it has always been the local TV stations vs. the newspaper. The TV stations have always had to compete, but competition is new to most monopoly newspapers. This morning in Memphis the TV news websites scored big points in the breaking news battle over the regional newspaper's website (note of potentional conflict: I used to work for the newspaper, The Commercial Appeal. and helped start their new media department in 2000).

As I woke-up this morning and turn on the news around 6:15 a.m., the Little Rock station KARK is showing live video from a three building fire in downtown Memphis as I turn to Fox News they are promoing an upcoming story on a big fire in downtown Memphis (as they show all of their 10th anniversary celebration which I could care less about). After I have a chance to sit down at breakfast, I grab my laptop and go check out the newspaper's website, commercialappeal.com, for more information on the big fire.

Nothing, nothing at all on the newspaper's website about the big fire. I mean if it's on the national news station you should have a big banner photograph, a story, a slide show and probably some video on it. So, I try a Memphis TV station, WMC-TV. The TV station has a locally written story, photos of the fire and on the story page three video clips of the fire (one set from a helicopter), a map of the eight blocks of downtown Memphis that are closed from the fire and a list of closings and delays due to the fire which include two courthouses and the county government complex. The TV station is also streaming their station live which I watch at full-screen on my laptop until I leave to take the kids to school and head to the office.

Once I arrive at work, I checked the CA's website again around 8:05. Nothing, nothing at all, again. WMC-TV is still going and they have updated their story. Finally, I check again about 8:40 a.m. and Yes, yes the CA has a story on their website posted at 8:35 a.m. Unfortunately, it is a three paragraph AP story. No photo, no map, no video, no closings. In fact it even has a typo in the byline.

Yes, admittedly, the story occured at the worst possible time for the newspaper. The fire started at 3 a.m. An hour after the paper was put to bed and the last editorial staffer left the building, but that is no excuse for not having one word about the fire on your site until 8:35 a.m. Nothing for commuters to check before they leave. Nothing for those "early morning take a peak at the paper" before I do my actual work visitors.

Newspaper websites must move beyond the shovel the news from the print edition onto the web stage and realize they are in a competitive 24 hour breaking news cycle and staff accordingly. At least have a breaking news dayside staffer come in at 5 or 6 a.m. to get the top stories updated before the majority of traffic hits the site as they get to work. The dayside staffer can then work on dayparting the site's lead stories, multimedia stories, rewriting call-ins from morning news and monitoring the newspaper's citizen journalism initiatives.