Many of you in Durham will remember the ground-breaking news website that our team at The Herald-Sun developed in 2000 (see below). It won many awards, and, I have to say (and not just because I directed the work on it), was then the most innovative newspaper website going, and was better than most operating even today. Too bad it doesn’t exist anymore.
I can understand the Paxton Media folks wanting to put their mark on The Herald-Sun in print and online, but I can’t understand the deletion of so many fine features of that original website, ones that could be operating today and adding value to the Paxton brand. I am thinking of the many fine multi-media features by Joe Weiss, the VoteBook portion of the site that included a highly popular citizenship test, and the 360-degree virtual tours of all the Triangle’s college sports venues, just to name a few.
OK, so fine. It’s their website and they can keep any or none of the stuff we designed 12 years ago that is still fresh today. But some things are just required on a website, like a byline, like something to tell the reader if they’re reading a letter to the editor, a staff column, or an editorial. And even a headline would be nice. None of those are present here.
A reader coming to this Herald-Sun page is completely in the dark. Even more confusing is the fact that the story/column/letter is run twice on the same page, back to back. It’s clear that the Paxton Media Group doesn’t see online as the future.
