New Media Workshop

Peter is now tied with Fi-on for journalistic initiative in the face of my challenge dirty trick, offering $100 to whoever finds the SCMP’s (nonexistent) newsfeeds. While Fi-on e-mailed the SCMP and received a response informing her that a revamp of the website is coming soon, Peter picked up the phone. He writes:

I called the customer service desk and spoke to two people working on the desk. The first person I spoke to did not know what RSS was and seemed skeptical about my admittedly lay person’s explanation. The fact that even someone who works in customer service for a big media organisation has no knowledge of RSS/Newsfeeds is perhaps symptomatic of the general population’s ignorance on this issue. The second person I spoke to was fully informed and told me that a full RSS service would be launched in March. I think I deserve the HK$100 prize for initiative.

The SCMP’s revamp is coming none too soon given the trashing their web presence has been getting from many bloggers lately. For those of you who are interested, I’ve been involved in an exchange with some local bloggers about the relative roles of the SCMP and bloggers in reporting one particular story. One example of why the SCMP’s web strategy is not working was played out when blogger Roland Soong got most the web traffic and much of the credit (which he didn’t ask for, to be clear) for a particular story which the SCMP actually reported first – but which nobody could link to because it was password-protected for paying subscribers. My two cents at the end of a long post:

I hope the SCMP’s revamp includes opening up their site so that their hard-working journalists will be able to gain the same global relevance and impact that some Hong Kong bloggers have achieved singlehandedly with no marketing departments.

Joining the worldwide online conversation – from which they have so far excluded themselves – is good for the SCMP’s business and brand in the long run, I believe. Especially since, as I understand, their online paid subscriptions have hit a plateau and are not expected to grow substantially.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Let us all know in class or in the comments section of this post.

A further note: I am spending so much time discussing the SCMP not because I dislike them. I don’t “have it out” for them by any means. I know and like their editor and have known a lot of their reporters over the years. I am spending so much time discussing them because they are one of the two English language newspapers here in our local market and the contrast between them and what other newspapers around the world are doing is rather relevant to a web journalism class.

I couldn’t live in Hong Kong and live without the SCMP. I just wish the world wide web could benefit from their journalism a bit more than it currently does. For this reason, I think it would be really fabulous if they would allow our class to “beta test” their redesigned site and give them feedback before it goes live.