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Play Along At Home: Where Is This Newspaper Website From?
from the the-web-is-global,-remember dept
Earlier this year we wrote about newspapers that put up websites that don't indicate the location they're based in. Thanks to various news search engines, it's increasingly common that you may end up on the website of a "local" newspaper that is anything but local to you -- but where you have no clue what "local" is. Even worse, they often include generic descriptions of places ("the valley," "the river," "the north side") which mean absolutely nothing to you. E-Media Tidbits is griping about another such site where even the webcam shot of "downtown" showing the local weather is perfectly ambiguous. So, we'll let everyone play along at home: just how many clicks does it take you to figure out what's "local" for The Truth Online.
Reader Comments
(Flattened / Threaded)
No Subject Given
1 click
Elkhart Office
P.O. Box 487
Elkhart, IN 46515-0487
Goshen Office
622 W. Lincoln Ave.
Goshen, IN 46526
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Re: No Subject Given
It *can* be done in one click, but the question is where do you click? For a lot of people, it's not at all clear.
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Re: No Subject Given
You mean most people don't think about scrolling all the way to the bottom and clicking a link in the fine print to see what their news is about? :)
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Re: No Subject Given
We were just playing along from home. Not excusing their lack of context.
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Number of Clicks
Just one. If you click on the Contact Newsroom link at the bottom of the homepage you will find that they are located in Indiana (Elkhart & Goshen)
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No Subject Given
all of half a second:
http://www.nappanee.org/
So it looks like an area of IN including these three areas
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easy
Based on the lead story, the paper must be from the area of Nappanee. The community section would lead you to believe that local is Elkhart county.
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Elkhart, IN
One click by following the "forecast" link.
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Place - Less web
Click on the sports page , usually local sports gives away the location of the news site ~~ R.A.H.
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No Subject Given
Why should anyone NEED TO click at all? I believe the point that Mike was trying to make here, was that NEWS websites should present all five of the "W's" when posting NEWS stories.
who, what, when, why and _WHERE_
Without KNOWING all five of those "W's", the news is quite useless.
Thanks Mike, I was wondering when someone would say something about this -- its a problem that I find all too often on the internet. A long news story may take me a few minutes to read through, and without all of the [W's] information, I feel as though I had just wasted my time.
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er...only one
scroll down...click on contact us: newsroom
scroll down: postal address Elkhart, Illinois.
Na na na na naaaaaaa
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No Clicks On a Guess but one clcik to verify
I say an article on Elkart and thought it might be Elkart, Indiana. After scrolling to the bottom and clicking the Newspaper Delivery button I discovered I was right. All it takes is a little scanning and thought. But it would be nice to have something on the front page saying what community it served.
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the truth is out there
oops.... I meant Indiana
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no clicks
Zero Clicks
"And for Nappanee Fire Chief Tom Anglin"
Nappanee; final answer.
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Re: no clicks
And where the F is Nappanee?
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Re: no clicks
North of Indianapolis, East of Chicago, West of Akron, and South of Lansing--Northwest of Fort Wayne. Oh yeah; and a hop, skip, and a jump from Notre Dame's hometown of Southbend.
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How Many Clicks?
Well, I have to admit that "The Truth" is an example of poor web identification and moderate user friendliness.
It only took me 3 clicks to find Elkhart Indiana, I found it after looking for the "about" and then finding the "delivery" information link. They might get more subscribers if their readers could find out how to get the news delivered. Go figure!
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Where is this newspaper from
Indiana
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No Subject Given
Another thing that's really annoying is online magazine articles that are written without the date. You do a google on a certain subject, find an article, but you have no idea as to it's relevence because there is no date! Argh!!
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One Click -- Copyright
One simple click on the "Copyright" link at the bottom of the page.
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bothers me too...
1 click
Weather
Elkhart, IN
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How many clicks till I knew it was from Elkart Ind
The question was How many clicks till I knew it was from Elkart Indiana? ZERO.
Haha, it was on the front page said Indiana and Elkart County. I clicked on Hometown Game story just to be sure and saw the header ELKART-
You guys maybe just cant see the trees for the forest.
LOL.. there are plenty of trees here in Washington.
ps I have had to use an old mostly spammed email. It is not safe email is it? (hidden addy) So I had to use protection. :)
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Re: How many clicks till I knew it was from Elkart
wow...are you crazy, high, or all of teh above?
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No Subject Given
Two licks brought me to the following:Send mail to:
Elkhart Office
P.O. Box 487
Elkhart, IN 46515-0487
Goshen Office
622 W. Lincoln Ave.
Goshen, IN 46526
Was this a trick question?
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13th Line of HTML
META NAME="description" CONTENT="The leading information source in Elkhart county providing news, sports, entertaiment and local information."
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Where is this url?
1 click - elckhart - Indiana
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How many clicks?
Click "subscribe", if the word "Elkhary" doesn't give it away, then Google the phone number.
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No Subject Given
One click, "Contact" links are always great :)
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etruth.com
Its Elkhart, Indiana if no one has said yet
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just 1 click
Under "contact" --- however maybe I am disqualified since I do this sort of thing every day with these local online papers as a journalist.
Send mail to:
Elkhart Office
P.O. Box 487
Elkhart, IN 46515-0487
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No Subject Given
Elkhart Office
P.O. Box 487
Elkhart, IN 46515-0487
Goshen Office
622 W. Lincoln Ave.
Goshen, IN 46526
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um...
I didn't have to click at all...
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No Subject Given
1 click - weather forecast :) - as I expected it gave the area it was giving the forecast for.
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No Subject Given
I just want to be redundant like everyone else and post saying that I found out where the newspaper is from.
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No Subject Given
1 by forcast
2 by job search
2 by house for sale
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Point
You guys are missing the point. It should have taken 0 clicks. Elkhart county means nothing to me because I don't live in Indiana. The header of the page should say "eTruth, Elkhart, Indiana". You shouldn't have to scan the whole article to determine relevancy.
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Re: Point
Well, as true as it is, why would you be on such a small news site, and not on one that you know is local to you... I know off hand of 4 or more local news sites for me, chances are you know the sites that are local to you
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1 click
1 click -- to the support/newspaper delivery page. Elkhart/Goshen Indiana.
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agreed
Alot of people are missing the point. If you go to http://www.latimes.com the city and state of the paper (despite it's fame) is in the title of the page...that's how it should be for ALL newspapers with online versions. I shouldn't have to try to deduce the locale by reading stories or clicking links...it should be obvious with a glance. Even The rather huge Mercury News (http://www.mercurynews.com) which covers "Bay Area" news forgets that someone else in the world that doesn't know or live near "the bay area" might not have any idea what bay they are talking about. The idea that professional journalists are so vague and non-specific kind of makes me wonder how professional they are after all.
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one click
Just clicked om weather link and saw current conditions in elkhart, indiana.
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