The Times of India website ran the Housewives story as the lead. The newspaper (image below) ran the Gujarat Home Minister story as the lead.
Yes, everyone has teams to select and upload content. But these teams have little choice when it comes to choose content. They have to dig into the newspaper barrel to find stories, and these stories have been generated not for the web but for the newspaper.
That is why in the morning news websites look like clones of their respective newspapers. It is only when the wire copy starts coming in that fresh content goes up on the sites.
So, it was refreshing to see The Times of India website pick up the housewives story — that stated that housewives had been clubbed with beggars and prostitutes in the National Census — and run it as the main story on the web this morning.
The Gujarat Home Minister story against whom a chargesheet was filed by CBI was listed as a headline link in the Top Stories section though the newspaper had run it as the top story.
This is what is needed on the net. Till such time that content is generated specifically for the net, web teams must choose content that is more likely to attract web readers.
There is no point in treating the web and the newspaper as one and the same medium. Both have different audiences, and different news cycles, and should work accordingly.
