This deal just makes sense all around.

Mashable is reporting that The McClatchy Company has inked a deal with Chicago-based coupon provider Groupon.

While we wonder what the business terms of the agreement are, it’s fairly safe to say that this move works for both parties. This is a great step for McClatchy; they now have a partner that can deliver local — nay, hyperlocal — daily deals through its pages. This is also a great step for Groupon, as the company can spread its wings into the not-so-digital community.

This isn’t the news business’ first foray into discounting, however. The Chicago Tribune has its own deals site, Half-Price Chicago, which offers gift certificates at steep discounts.

What are your thoughts on the deal? Is this type of arrangement something a newspaper can pull off with its own sales force, or does partnering with, say, a Groupon or YouSwoop make more sense? Has your news organization considered offering similar deals?

Please leave your thoughts as comments below!

-Daniel B. Honigman

This morning, the Austin American-Statesman began a collaboration with Gowalla, the social media startup that uses GPS-enabled phones to help people explore their cities.

A few larger media outlets have taken a similar plunge, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal with rival service Foursquare, and the Washington Post and National Geographic with Gowalla. It was an easy match for the Statesman because Gowalla is based in Austin, and the Statesman has been pushing the envelope on social media for years.

Users who follow the Statesman and its entertainment site, Austin360, on Gowalla can complete trips that give virtual pins as rewards.

If you haven’t tried Gowalla or Foursquare, the whole idea of “checking in” to a location seems rather absurd – much the way Twitter likely sounded absurd when you first heard about it. However, we now know that Twitter can be used as an effective tool during breaking news events. That point was driven home in Austin during the plane crash into the IRS building. It’s way too early to tell whether Gowalla, Foursquare or any other location-based network will truly hit the mainstream – or be an effective tool for journalists beyond fun marketing.

So what does the Statesman expect to gain from this deal with Gowalla?

* It is very good for marketing. Gowalla is entertaining and addictive to use, so it’s great to have our brand associated with something fun.

* It’s another way to get into mobile devices. The news industry has been trying hard for the past couple of years to go mobile, building iPhone apps, better mobile sites and using Twitter and text messages. This is yet another way to seamlessly put our content and news into smart phones, which weaves our news into the fabric of our city.

* It is a way to get our foot in the door. If this does take off, we’ll be in a good position to do much more with it.

For its part, Gowalla gets exposure and content, two things it needs as it pushes back against not only Foursquare, but Yelp, Facebook, Twitter and others who are jumping into or are already in the location-based field.

We’re starting out with eight Gowalla trips, but plan to expand with more trips and eventually other creative ways of melding our content into Gowalla’s application. It’s a good start – and it’s fun.

- Robert Quigley

(NOTE: This is a guest post by  Leah Betancourt.)

Journalists are increasingly looking to expand their skill set or even reinvent themselves during this challenging time for the news industry. Some are doing it on their own terms.

Former newspaper reporters Alexis Grant and Adam Jadhav have a lot in common. They both quit their full-time reporting jobs they loved to travel abroad while blogging and shooting photos and video along the way.

Blog Fixture of New Venture

Grant set a goal for herself that after she had been working at the Houston Chronicle for three years and if she had enough money saved, she would take a long-term trip. When she was 27, she left her job as a health reporter in 2008 and spent six months traveling to several French-speaking African countries.

Alexis documented her travels through a blog

Grant freelanced for newspapers and magazines, but stressed that it supplemented the trip costs, but didn’t pay for them completely. She also tried blogging for the first time and put most of her effort into that. She also blogged so her family would know where she was.

Grant said that in her reporting job, she didn’t want to add another thing to her job, such as blogging. During her trip she learned she loved blogging. “I discovered a love for blogging that I didn’t know I had,” she said.

Slow and unpredictable Internet connections made things difficult. She said her biggest mistake was not setting up her blog ahead of time so she would have as little work as possible to do when blogging on the road. When Grant did find a fast Internet connection, she’d upload photos to Flickr. That’s how editors she freelanced for were able to access them.

Some of her freelance stories from her trip include, In modern Cameroon polygamy doesn’t pay and Baylor’s West African AIDS project perseveres.

When Grant got back, she decided to write a book full-time about the trip. Having just turned 28, she moved in with her parents in suburban Albany, NY. The travel memoir is loosely based on the blog. “There’s an element of personal journey to it,” she said.

She attributes writing the book to helping her improve her writing and becoming a better journalist. “I think that’s going to help me in my next job,” she said. “This is a chance for me to see how I could write in a different way.”

Grant launched another blog and a YouTube channel and posted her travel videos. She also joined Twitter. “Through my blog and Twitter, I was able to find others who are writing travel memoirs,” she said. Then she started a Ning group for writers of travel memoirs.

Today, Grant is job searching while living in Washington DC.

Search for Meaningful Journalism

At 27, Adam Jadhav went to Kenya nearly eight months ago. Since then he has been to Madagascar and India. He’s now in southeast Asia.

Jadhav left his job as reporter at the St. Louis-Dispatch covering poverty issues in July 2009 to go abroad as an international reporter. He admitted that a one-week reporting trip to Cuba in March made his desire to do international reporting stronger. In 2007, he was the newspaper’s multimedia reporter. In the summer of 2008, he launched the Post-Dispatch’s political channel on YouTube.

“I figured I could afford to spend a year or two out on the road tilting at windmills and (I hope) producing some meaningful journalism along the way. And I’m incredibly lucky: I had the savings, the lack of commitments, a supportive mother, professors and editors, the multimedia training and a healthy dose of moxie to do it,” he wrote in an e-mail.

At the same time, he launched a blog, where he posts videos, audio slideshows and photos. He said the blog is a personal outlet to share his trip with his family and friends, but he also posts updates about the work he’s covering during his travels. He also uses Facebook and Twitter to share information.

Jadhav also struggles with slow Internet connection speeds. He said that in Africa it can take up to two hours to upload a video, which also requires a constant connection to achieve. He uses YouTube as his video content management system because it’s ubiquitous and it offers the best chance for his video clips to get picked up elsewhere.

“YouTube is the starting point for my videos; they automatically spread to Twitter and Facebook. I absolutely think cross posting is a good idea and when I have something more worthwhile, I fully intend to post elsewhere,” he said.

He tries to focus on stories that will connect with U.S. audiences. For example an HIV clinic in Kenya has a direct connection to the University of Illinois in Chicago.

A few of his stories he has covered abroad include: Harley gunning for growing market in India, Kenyan males line up for circumcision and the Maasai Show. He has a few more awaiting publication and several finished pieces without a buyer.

Jadhav said he has spent far more time sending e-mails and looking up contacts as part of his business then doing actual journalism.

“The big, meaty stories are too expensive to really pursue without prior funding commitments. News feature and travel journalism is simply easier to sell,” he said.

He spent his first three months in India waiting for his residency and his work permit to get processed and approved, which was important because he eventually wants to work in India long-term.

Jadhav admits, however, his lifestyle isn’t for everyone. “I’m comfortable being marginally employed,” he said. “I’m not in a rush. I have savings to fall back on, and that I’m doing plenty of personal travel, adventure and language study.”

Jadhav doesn’t know when he plans on returning to the U.S. He’s moving to Ecuador in July for volunteer work and to pursue other stories. He tentatively plans to be in the U.S. in the fall to apply to an international development graduate school before returning to India early next year.

It isn’t just wanderlusts who want to do freelance journalism abroad. There are training programs for learning these skills and applying them professionally.

Teaching Visual Language

Bill Gentile, an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker, spearheaded the American University School of Communication’s Backpack Journalist Program, which launched April 1.

He said there’s a lot of spray and pray out there. In other words, shooting video and hope you’ve got something good. “That’s not what we’re talking about,” he said.

The project aims train people to speak a visual language. “The visual language really is a separate language. Too few people can really speak this language properly,” he said.

Program courses include photojournalism and social documentary, foreign correspondence and backpack documentary, according to its site. Workshops include “Storytelling: Backpack Journalism Style.” Gentile said they are working on certificate program.

The Backpack journalism methodology doesn’t work for every story, he said, but when it does, it’s much more intimate. Although Gentile fears that the methodology might be used as a cost-saving measure by news organizations.

He pointed out that no one is providing the platform, engaging the industry and practicing the craft of backpack journalism at the same time.

“We want to teach the real power of backpack journalism,” he said.

Freelance journalist travel tips:

From Alexis Grant:

• Be flexible. It’s almost better not to have a plan.
• Have your blog and social media tools set up and ready to use.
• Make sure you have freelance contacts in place.
• More tips from Grant

From Adam Jadhav:

• Be ready for a tough, but really fun road.
• Have as large of a toolkit as you can.
• Be able to work across mediums.
• Consider having something else to do with your time. There will be downtime while waiting to hear back from an editor or a source.

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Leah Betancourt is a journalist who has written about social media, emerging media and community engagement for Mashable, Poynter and elsewhere. This is her first post for Old Media, New Tricks, and we’re glad to have her!

If you’d like to contribute to Old Media, New Tricks, you can reach us through  @mediatricks on Twitter.

We’ve taken some time off from our Links of the Week posts, but here are some good posts we’ve read recently around the journo/social media blogosphere. Enjoy:

• We’re strong believers that real-life events and tweetups for your news organization can really help your reporters and editors get face time with your digital readers. If you didn’t believe us before, check out this Mashable article that lists three ways live events will improve your online communities.
• Brian Solis recently wrote about how brands — in their efforts to become more relevant and top-of-mind — must become more like true media. This concept certainly isn’t new, but he lays it out pretty well in this post.
• Are you considering a jump to new media from your “old media” organization? Business Insider compiled this list of 25 people who have done just that.
• Don’t know what a social media editor is? Read this post on 10,000 Words. (Note: OMNT’s very own Robert Quigley contributed to this one.)
• iPad-related stories were hot this week. (Obviously.) Here’s one from the Nieman Journalism Lab about some interesting ad spots on the Wall Street Journal’s iPad application, and a ValleyWag rundown of some of the different iPad news applications in the market today.
• We’ve written several times on the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) and news blogging. Jason Falls wrote a good intro to SEO for bloggers on his blog, Social Media Explorer.

- Daniel B. Honigman

Earlier this month, Austin American-Statesman reporter Steven Kreytak live-tweeted a local murder trial. The trial was emotional and at times painful because of the involvement of a child who had to testify about his mother’s death. Steven, who had never live tweeted a trial before, and was a light Twitter user before this trial, dove in. I asked Steven to answer a few questions for this newsletter because it was an interesting and successful trial use of Twitter as a breaking news tool during a highly competitive news story.

Below the Q&A, you’ll see some of my notes:

OMNT: Why did you decide to do this? Did anyone ask you to do it?

Kreytak: Around the time the trial started, the Baltimore Sun ran a story that said the Maryland Supreme Court was considering banning Twittering from courthouses. The story quoted a reporter from the Wichita (Kansas) Eagle who Twitters from court. I checked out some of that reporter’s posts and got some ideas for how to use Twitter as a court reporter.

At the time I thought to myself: A) I can do that, and B) Maybe I should consider doing that if someone is considering banning it.

I had set up a Twitter account months ago but never really took to using it. At the start of the Milton Dwayne Gobert trial I had about 50 followers. (I now have more than 125).

The most anticipated testimony of the trial was of the 11-year-old boy who was 5 the day that Gobert killed the boy’s mother. The boy was there and his testimony promised to be dramatic.

When the boy took the stand I filed a blog that he was testifying. Then I put a link to my Twitter page on the bottom of the blog. I really just made the decision to Twitter his testimony on the spot.

OMNT: How difficult was it to do? You not only live-tweeted, but you also blogged profusely and wrote stories for print. How did you manage?

Kreytak: In court I take some notes by hand and some on the laptop. Generally, because I type faster than I write, I type notes of opening statements, closing arguments as well as critical witnesses, like a defendant taking the stand in his own defense. The boy’s testimony was going to be critical so I typed it. I knew I’d want a lot of dialogue to put in the story.

So that allowed me to cut and paste sections of the boy’s testimony into Twitter. I may have missed some parts of his testimony that I would have had otherwise, but I got most of it.

When there was a break in testimony, I hurried and wrote a blog. I even wrote one once while the lawyers were discussing an objection at the bench. Usually these delays are frustrating but I managed to use them to my advantage.

As for the print stories, that came later so the blogging and Twittering served as a notebook for those stories. Now by the end of the day I was pretty tired from all of the blogging and Twittering, but not so much that I could not finish the day off with a print story.

OMNT: What was the response from readers? From your colleagues/supervisors?

Kreytak: I got great feedback from my colleagues/supervisors as well as readers. I also felt like many people around the courthouse — lawyers, private investigators, cops — were noticing my work more than usual. While I was covering the testimony I was fueled by watching as the number of followers I had increased.

OMNT: Would you do it again? What would you do differently?

Kreytak: I would do it again, but I would try to find more opportunities to send folks back to the Website and probably file fewer posts to Twitter.

OMNT: Did you see any personal/professional benefit to doing this?

Kreytak: The professional benefit is to assert myself as the authority on the courthouse. It’s great to feel like I am delivering directly to readers and can interact with them in real time. Yes, while live Twittering from court I responded to readers during brief breaks in testimony. And I got nothing but positive feedback. That’s a real psychological/emotional benefit in a time when online commenters love to beat you down.

OMNT: What tips or caveats do you have for the rest of the newsroom?

Kreytak: Pick your spots. The 11-year-old’s testimony was clearly riveting and so it was no doubt worthy of Twitter. But there are some really boring parts of any trial (public meeting, etc) and I believe that readers want us to distill those parts and not burden them with too much minutiae.

________________

Rob’s notes:

First of all, I’m excited that Steven wanted to experiment with a new way of reporting, and I think he did a great job. Not only was he live-tweeting, but he was filing excellent, frequently-updated blog posts and in-depth print stories as well. As you all know, this is not an easy task.

And people did appreciate what Steven did. How often do you get this kind of feedback from our readers?

What Steven did:

Below, you’ll see a Twitter exchange from Steven in the middle of the sentencing phase. Note that he replies to a reader (@TheDrowElf) and links to his work online, in this case, his blog post:

Linking back to the site:

Steven’s point that reporters should link back to their news site is a good one. As a newsroom, the Statesman is doing some fantastic and exciting things with new tools, from live video to live chats to social media. The key is to remember to balance it all out.  If you put all of your content on Twitter or Facebook, but don’t link back to your site at all, you’re giving your content away, and cheating readers out of seeing all the detailed work you put into your publication.

To that end, balance pouring content onto Twitter with linking people to your reports and articles online as much as possible. You can go overboard with this (only sending out links to our sites without putting any content on Twitter). Give your readers some content on Twitter, but leave enough for them to want to go to your news site for more.

- Robert Quigley

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NOTE: This is from a social media newsletter that I send out to the American-Statesman newsroom. You can read past newsletters here.

News organizations have been putting more money — and resources — into their Facebook and Twitter efforts. Engagement, like news, is a 24/7 job, but there are times when newsroom producers and community managers can get some serious bang for their buck.

In a recent blog post, Dan Zarrella published results from an ongoing analysis of Facebook data points. One interesting statistic stood out: Facebook users share anywhere from 20 to 50 percent more stories on weekends than they do during the week:

What does this mean? Your newsroom probably has weekend web producers. You either have a Sunday newspaper, newscast or web content. If your news organization has a Facebook page, post links to your stories on there over the weekend. It’s as simple as that.

Recently found another survey from the folks over at Retrevo. According to their survey of theirs (not sure how many people participated, so don’t ask! 1,000 people across the country took the study, which was conducted in early 2010; thanks to Jennifer over at Retrevo for the quick update), 42 percent of Twitter and Facebook users check or update their pages/feeds first thing in the morning:

First thing. Before turning on the television. Before going to their local news website. There are several things this should tell you:

• Tweet early in the morning, and be sure to post a variety of content, including any traffic tips and weather updates. If you get these out the door early enough, there’s a good chance your posts can show up in people’s Facebook News Feeds.
• Post reminders for your followers to check your Twitter and Facebook profile for early morning traffic tips and weather, as well as other news and information they need to know.

- Daniel B. Honigman

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Do you update your news organization’s Twitter pages and Facebook fan pages on weekends? First thing in the morning? What — and when — do you post? Please leave your thoughts as comments below!

For those of us in the publishing industry, it’s kind of a “no kidding” statement to say that the vast majority of what we do is gather content and then push it out there through print and online means. However, there’s another side to being a journalist: listening. We listen to what members of the community are saying. We listen to city officials. And we listen to the competition.

One of he little-known benefits of social media is that the tools can be used to listen. You can use social media effectively even if you’re pretty sure you’ll never tweet a thing. Here’s how:

• Through story comments. Though maligned (often righteously) for being the junk heap of the Internet, comments can offer some information if we listen. Don’t believe me that there can be value? Check out what American-Statesman Business Editor Kathy Warbelow has to say: “Readers sometimes know things we haven’t heard yet. Their comments have given up tipoffs on things like local layoffs — including recently at Dell — stores or restaurants opening or closing, the sudden stop of work on big construction projects — we heard about the big star riverside condo project problems from a reader comment — and sometimes about companies we had not known about.”

  Warbelow points out that sometimes comments are “maddeningly vague” and that e-mail addresses can be phony, but the business staff has been able to connect with enough people that she believes that “comments are good.”

• Besides sending out Tweets, you can also use Twitter just to listen. It’s not a bunch of people saying they’re eating a sandwich … you can follow a select group of Twitter users who can help you in your job (politicians, sports figures, corporations and other media outlets come to mind). There is some good (free) software for that, including Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop. If your followers are just tweeting about sandwiches, drop them and find the right followers. There are plenty of informative people and organizations on Twitter.

• Listen to what your Facebook friends are saying. Assuming you have some locals you have friended, you might hear some good tips. At the very least, you’ll likely get some good feedback on stories you’ve written.

Before social media, good journalists listened to what their neighbors were saying, what people were saying at the coffee shop and what city officials were telling them. Think of social media as a way to extend your reach.

- Robert Quigley

NOTE: This is from a social media newsletter that I send out to the American-Statesman newsroom. You can read past newsletters here.

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Please post your thoughts as comments on this post. We look forward to hearing what you have to say!

The buzz on the Internet this past week has been the unveiling of Google Buzz, the search giant’s serious bid to become a player in social media. Whether it can pry people away from Twitter and/or Facebook, which it will have to do to be successful, remains to be seen.

Either way, if Buzz turns into a powerhouse — or not — now is the time to establish your presence.

Not sure what Buzz is? It’s a hybrid between Facebook, Twitter and Gmail. Check out this demo video from Google:

Here’s what you should do:

• If you don’t have a Gmail account, get one. It’s free, and you need one to use Google Buzz.

• Fill out a Google Profile, if you haven’t done so already. Fill it out completely as possible, and include a picture of yourself. Be sure to use the URL section to link to your blog, Twitter and Facebook accounts. When you want to tell people via Twitter, Facebook or e-mail that you’re on Buzz, you can give them the URL to your profile.

• Go to your Gmail account and click “Buzz” on the left-hand side of the page.

• Connect your Twitter account, Flickr account or more by clicking on the “connected sites” link in the middle of the page. Anything you connect to it will feed into Buzz (not vice-versa).

• Find people to follow using the “find people” link. Google suggests people (even auto-follows some) based on your conversations you’ve had in the past via gmail or Google chats. Once you follow a well-connected friend, you can find more people to follow by on the list of his or her followers.

Anything you post on Buzz can be commented on, “liked” and e-mailed around, assuming you posted as a public message (there’s an option when you post).

If you are in a position to do so, you should establish a Buzz account for your media organization. I made a Buzz account for the Statesman by creating a new Gmail account for it. Please feel free to follow it.

- Robert Quigley

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Please post any thoughts you have on news organizations using Google Buzz as comments on this blog post!

2010 really looks like the year of location-based social networks, and the news industry seems to agree. The Metro publishing group recently announced a partnership with Foursquare; once a site user says where they are (done via GPS), relevant articles from Metro’s Canadian papers will be pulled into the program, providing site users additional information about the neighborhoods, restaurants and stores near them.

While this move may make some waves for Metro, and may drive some incremental traffic to the Metro group of sites, some may question the move’s overall value for the news company.

Here are three additional ways news organizations — and the business units that support them — can leverage location-based social networks such as Foursquare to make money and drive some incremental traffic:

• Highlight local landmarks, must-dos and other activities in a multimedia tour. Location-based services such as GoWalla and Foursquare were created, essentially, for social urban explorers: people who like to go to new places and tell others about their travels. Local news organizations can encourage their writers to create content about landmarks and partner with advertisers to create promotions and deals for tour goers along the way.
• Drive SEO by encouraging local lifestyle writers to post links to reviews/articles on location pages. While not a location-based social network, Urbanspoon allows bloggers to link their restaurant reviews to restaurant pages through a special embed code. (Example here.) Social media leads at news organizations can encourage restaurant reviewers to post restaurant reviews as “tips” on venue pages, feature writers to link to pieces on local landmarks on those pages, and so on. Then, when site users check in to a certain location, they may click through to the newspaper article pages from the network venue pages.
• Partner with location-based networks to become their sales force. If a local news organization were to show interest in Foursquare, it could become its local sales division, helping draw in new users, new deals and new locations. The quicker Foursquare, GoWalla or MyTown grow, the more likely that site is to become the location-based social network of the future.

- Daniel B. Honigman

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How else can mainstream media organizations leverage location-based social networks in a way that makes them money? Please share your thoughts as a comment on this post!

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Addendum: Foursquare has announced partnerships with Zagat, Warner Bros., HBO and ExploreChicago. No other news organizations have signed on with the service, but the partnerships, as reported by Mashable, are quite interesting.

This is from a social media newsletter that I send out to the American-Statesman newsroom. You can read previous newsletter entries about audience and responsiveness to the community.

Searching for traffic

Newspaper copy editors spend a lot of time crafting the best headlines for stories, with particular attention focused on the front-page headlines. The reason is obvious: to draw readers into our content. On the Web, writing a good headline is just as important.

Thanks to detailed metrics, we can see exactly what draws people to our content, and we know that search engines bring in a sizable chunk of traffic on newspaper Web sites. Most of that traffic is not coming to the newspapers’ home pages but to individual stories, blog posts, videos and photos.

This search engine traffic is so valuable that there’s an entire industry, search marketing, built around finding ways to drive it. When you search for something on Google, it’s not sheer luck that you can find what you’re looking for – Google takes several things into account before deciding what content to put first. Search marketers work with companies and individuals to help them place better in the search engines.

Although Google’s algorithm for ranking stories is a trade secret, search engine marketers have figured out the major factors that come into play. One of them is including relevant keywords in headlines. When news broke recently in Austin about the local-favorite Cactus Cafe closing, Austin360.com could have written a headline online that said, “Longtime UT music venue to close in August.” Although there’s nothing factually wrong with the headline, it misses out on some keywords that would help people find that story when they search for it on Google, Bing or Yahoo. The headline Austin360 did use was “UT to close Cactus Cafe, end informal classes.” That has all the keywords we’d want: “UT” “close” and “Cactus Cafe.” Thanks in part to that headline, the story appears at the tops of the search engines today.

“When writing headlines, you all are the masters,” said search marketing expert Kate Morris. “I did not major in journalism in school, but many blog writers are told to look at journalists for ideas.”

We’re all headline writers these days, whether you’re writing a headline for your blog, for a photo gallery, a video or a story that’s going on A1.

Morris has this advice for writing headlines:

* Look for a balance between eye-catching and relevance. Don’t worry about trying to pack the headline full of keywords to the point that the headline is awkward, but also try to avoid something that’s clever but lacks any keywords.

* Focus on one topic. Morris says: “Going for “Michael Jackson” isn’t going to get you on the top for his name. But if you go for something like “michael jackson documentary austin show” – that focuses well, but may not have the best traffic. In the end, write for the end user, but keep keywords in the back of your mind.”

* Although we’re not limited in space the way we are in print, if a headline is too long, it might get cut off online in an awkward spot when displayed in search engines.

Link, link, link

Headline writing isn’t the only thing that helps us in rankings. Google’s algorithm also takes linking into account. Generally, more people linking to us helps our search engine “juice.” Linking out, surprisingly, also helps, Morris said.

“Linking out is becoming more important as time progresses,” Morris said. “Think of it as Karma. The search engines have noticed that the sites that link out are more relevant than those that keep traffic to themselves.”

Morris said it’s important to link out only when relevant, though. Don’t add 20 links to one article or blog entry – two or three is fine. A few more than that is OK if they’re relevant. “Ask yourself if you would read the story, if the links are interesting to you. We are all readers.”

We should also link internally, again, when relevant. Linking to one of your own past blog entries or another story on our site is good, but only if it makes sense to do so.

Search engines also look at the tops of storie sand blog posts to find relevant key words to organize and rank content. Morris points out that a good story will already most likely have the top keywords near the top of the story. So burying the lead online can be as much of a problem as burying it in print.

Overall, we’re doing pretty well, Morris said. “You’re more ahead of the game than you know.”

Click here to read a Q&A Old Media New Tricks conducted last year with Morris.

- Robert Quigley