The Arizona Republic has unveiled a redesign of its Web site, azcentral.com. I’m sure there’s some explanation somewhere, but when you click on the story titled "A new look for Arizona’s home page," it takes you to a 404 page saying "the page you are looking for could not be found." Technology.
It’s cleaner than the old home page. My big complaint as a newspaper reader is that it’s much more difficult to find the Republic (on the old site, it was one click to that day’s newspaper). This is especially bothersome because one can’t easily find the opinions section. While it’s tedious and predictable at the Republic, the editorial/opinions section is still critical to a newspaper/Web site’s ability to analyze the news and have some influence.
There are some contemporary tech doo-dads, but much of the page looks very, er, 1999. For example, the news stories lack the hypertext links that can refer you to other stories on the topic, etc. My other impression is that there is even less journalism than before. Celebutard "news" is prominent. People are invited to submit their own "stories," etc. That’s a fatal misreading of the Web today, where sophisticated, exclusive and breaking content — backed by the depth of techy doo-dads — is the gold standard.
For years, the AZR "information center" has largely rewritten press releases or regurgitated the pronouncements of local pols, as skeptical, sophisticated enterprise reporting has become less and less frequent or encouraged. That’s too bad because enterprise is what brings eyeballs. And Arizona is so corrupt and screwed up, it’s a target-rich environment for such work. "Citizen journalists" and the bored housewife in Desert Ridge aren’t going to do this work. Nor are the unmentored, uncoached, largely unedited young people increasing on the payroll.
Oh, well.
https://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/ or https://arizonarepublic.com/ will get you where you want to go.
I agree that investigative or enterprise or just plain good journalism can bring traffic. I disagree with your broad brush brush-off of ‘citizen journalism’. It’s too broad a term. There are volunteer folks out there who do excellent jobs. See, e.g., ePluribus Media.
Think about the ‘pro/am’ distinction in sports for a moment. When used there, we accept that some athletes are excellent, just not professionals.
Yes, there are also athletes who are hacks.
But, I believe our conversation about citizen journalism would improve if we acknowledge the distinction between capable/competent versus not — and then seek ways to get more of the former. That would increase, not decrease, the kind of coverage you want to see.