Comments on: The NYTimes.com’s strange linking practice

By: Rex Hammock

Rex Hammock — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 01:22:52 +0000

I haven’t been contacted by many NY Times reporters with that question, however, I definitely have been asked that question by many reporters — but fewer as time goes by. In any event, I always refer them to you when they ask.

By: Josh Hallett

Josh Hallett — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 01:08:56 +0000

Just because a story is about a weblog doesn’t make much difference, to the reporter it’s just another subject.

How many times have you been contacted by a reporter writing a story about blogs and they’ll ask, “So what are blogs?”

By: Rex Hammock

Rex Hammock — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:59:54 +0000

I just noticed this article on NYTimes.com is "rich" in links, so apparently the CMS makes linking easy. Perhaps your observation that the article was written for print is correct. However, when a story is actually about a weblog, even a print-centric reporter or website copy editor should understand the rationale of a link to the subject of the story.

By: Rex Hammock

Rex Hammock — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 15:23:20 +0000

Josh, I respect your knowledge of this, but the NYTimes.com has the ability to link. (Perhaps we can forward this to Khoi Vinh for a ruling on the CMS limitations of their current system.)

By: Josh Hallett

Josh Hallett — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 15:02:30 +0000

Rex it might be a policy, but working with a number of papers and reporters it might fall into one of two categories:

1. The content management system that reporters use is mostly geared towards print, the web is an afterthought. As such they can’t do it.

2. I would say that over half (wait make that 75%) of reporters I deal with don’t know any HTML, let alone a basic link. They just don’t know how to do it.