I’m currently sat in an online journalism tutorial at City University. They’re currently teaching the class “how to write for websites”. All these points are pretty much verbatim from our tutor, with my comments in [brackets]. This is what we’ve been told so far:
Don’t put an external link in the first three paragraphs of an article, because you don’t want to send people away from your content. [This is a highly cynical tactic. Your users will hate you if you don't link clearly and often to sources.]
Make sure you alter the link type to “open in new window” because then people won’t leave your content. [This is a dreadful policy. Don't tell web users how to browse your content.]
A perfectly written online article will result in people closing the tab at the end, not visiting another (presumably competing) website or link. [Nonsense. You want people to click another link at the end of your article. Preferably to another article by you. But not exclusively.]
Education is not as good now as it was in the past, and people have shorter attention spans, so you should always write short sentences in the active voice: ideally one sentence per paragraph. [I agree with the sentiment that you should write concisely, but I don't agree that readers are dumb. I believe in challenging readers. They respond well to that.]
People read in an “F” pattern (thanks Jakob!). [So maybe you should put ads at the top left?]
Write in an “inverse pyramid”, or a “zooming out” style with the facts in the “news epicentre”. [Sure, why not? Put the information first]
We’re now covering Jakob Nielsen’s “Reading on the Web” about usability and writing style. Keep it simple, stupid.
You can’t compete with Reuters, or the BBC, so why try? What is the angle that you have that does the job ot telling people what is happening in the world today? Write slightly more analytical work that hangs on what is happening now. [I think the point is you need to write for a niche.]
to be continued
