| If they come, you will build it The attitude that allowed the Web site to evolve so it now nets a larger profit than the newspaper itself puts a twist on that mantra from Field of Dreams. Rather than “If you build it, they will come,” the thinking went “If they come, you will build it.” Unlike many newspaper Web sites, washingtonpost.com doesn’t charge for any of its content, including all of the daily news carried over from the print edition. “We’ve kind of put our eggs in the basket of let’s offer everything for free and try to build an audience,” explains Brady. “And if you build the audience—if you get enough people to come to the site—you know you’ll find a way to monetize that.” This attitude has built not only enough advertising revenue to turn a healthy profit, but also an expanded global presence for what had long been a regional newspaper. Though the Post never focused on print distribution or advertising outside of the Washington region, says Butler, 60 percent of its online audience hails from the rest of the nation, and 20 percent from overseas. Since gaining worldwide fame for Woodward and Bernstein’s Watergate coverage in the early 1970s, the Post has been regarded as a dominant voice in Washington. Then there’s its signature-style of reporting that, according to SOC professor Wendell Cochran, shapes “conversation throughout the city . . . and that’s really the role the Post has played.” Hosting the conversation But today’s readers crave a bigger role in shaping that conversation. No doubt tomorrow’s will want even more. The Post’s treatment of bloggers as partners rather than competitors marks a significant shift that may be a sign of what’s to come for other traditional news organizations that keep self-made pundits at arm’s length. “There’s no question that everybody’s got a printing press now, and people want to be involved in the conversation,” says Brady. “A lot of that conversation surrounds stuff that comes out of the Post or the New York Times or other news organizations, so it would be silly for us to ignore that those conversations are happening. Our attitude is we should host them if we can.” To do that, washingtonpost.com was the first and is still one of the only traditional news sites in which every article prominently features links to bloggers’ commentaries on the story—whether positive or negative. Similarly, the site hosts dozens of online discussions on issues raised by its news coverage, and each of its stories features e-mail links to put readers directly in touch with Washington Post staff writers. Of course, there have been growing pains. In January, for instance, Brady temporarily suspended comments on post.blog, a Post-hosted blog discussing the washingtonpost.com site itself, after it was flooded with personal attacks and profane rants against ombudsman Deborah Howell, who wrote that the embattled lobbyist Jack Abramoff had made contributions to Democrats as well as Republicans. “A lot of people have said this is an example of what’s going to happen every time anybody criticizes the Post: they’re going to shut down a message board,” says Brady. “But it wasn’t about criticizing the Post. You can go to the site today and find hundreds of comments criticizing the newspaper . . . The idea is that we’re trying to build a civil community here.” continued next page >> top |
