Crap print makes for a crap web

A report on a recent conference in the States threw up this interesting quote from a guy called Bob Benz of the E.W. Scripps Company.

…simply employing a “beasts, beauties and babes” approach to attracting Web visitors presents some significant ethical challenges. The solution, then, he said, is to keep the core journalistic principles at heart while catering news coverage to a specific audience. Because the Internet is a new medium, Benz said, journalists have to find new ways to cover the news and change their style to accommodate new technology.

“If it’s boring crap in print, it’s going to be boring crap when you read it into a microphone and put it online,” he said. “… News is fascinating… you couldn’t write soap operas this good, but sometimes we report it like boring drudgery.”

Amen to that.