Commentary:
NMPA Site Demonstrates Deficiency in Web Skills Among Press Corps
The New Mexico Press Association Web site typifies languishing efforts among the state's old-school media to bring their classic - and invaluable - public service journalism skills into the 21st Century. A review of archived NMPA site views suggests the site hasn't improved much over the past several years -- and efforts to upgrade the state print-industry's Web presence have only made it more of an embarrassment to the ink-stained scribes.
There was a time when heads would've rolled, from the newsroom through pre-press to the press room, for work such as this: Text overlaps text to be unreadable, design cuts words down the middle in a confusing array of low-contrast color, menu text out of register with background boxes.
Shall I continue? What about use of the proprietary Internet Explorer tag to scroll distracting text across the top of the page? The mention of services -- legislative lobbying, newsletter, legal services, newspaper directory -- with no links to those services?The Press Association Web site is the epidome of bad Web design.
Why am I complaining? Some friends are quick to point out that some of the HTML on Santafetribune.org is not entirely standards compliant. They say the site could use off-the-shelf software to accomplish what one ambitious coder might someday approach creating mostly new software to drive what might become an accessible user-generated news portal.
But the state's print industry could do better. I know. I was one of them, until my ambitious data work was forgotten during a server installation while I was working on a deadline story. Friends say I should get over that already, too. Fine.
The state press associaton can do better. Design principles didn't change when we started looking directly into lighted screens instead of watching light reflected off of inked pages. What should change is the way publishers approach their readers, but print publishers are heavily invested in expensive technology, which is tied to once-ample revenue streams. I did say once ample.
The revenue that once drove costly print operations has dried up. Web-advertising revenue hasn't come close to bridging the gap for most publishers. The new playing field requires new approaches, but what readers demand has not changed all that radically -- they want to know who, what, where, when. If news rooms would learn, from the reporters through the editors and designers, to use and value digital tools for organizing information, they would have a chance to stay in the race. At least a chance.
With work like that demonstrated on the New Mexico Press Association Web site depicted at the top of this page, they don't stand a chance. I stand a better chance working on a $400 computer, using $100 a year hosting, free software and whatever programing code I write to advance flexibility in online publishing.
At least I won't suffer the embarrasment of collective failure in 21st Century media, because I'll know I tried. C'mon, my peers - give it the old college try -- if not for your company, if not for your career, for your community. If not for them, do it for you own sense of self worth.
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