Editor Tom Callinan is defending The Cincinnati Enquirer against a host of questions from Poynter Online about high-profile Web ads the Enquirer and other papers published for Sen. Barack Obama's campaign. The Enquirer was one of five Ohio and Texas papers to run the ads in positions with such prominence that Poynter's Bill Mitchell wondered whether readers might think they represented endorsements. (That was one of his many questions.)"Our decision was that it was not that unusual in the digital world, although certainly that type of intrusion would not work in print,'' Callinan told Poynter in an e-mail. "I can say that 'business conditions' did not impact our decision. We have a policy here that advertising alerts content people of these types of issues and we have the final say if we feel the user experience suffers or a line is crossed."
[Image: this morning's Enquirer, Newseum]
Many news sites have abandoned these horrible scroll-down ads for this very reason -- and the fact that they really annoy readers.
ReplyDeleteNot Gannett. Take USA TODAY. It is hands-down the most ad-annoying of the major news sites. There are pop-ups, pop-unders (I think USAT stands absolutely alone among big news sites in still accepting these horrible ads), animated ads that scroll across into story text, and on and on and on. There's no ad style too annoying for USA TODAY.
For people who have dial-up Internet connections, video ads and chuck-full News websites are a real drag. Many newspaper websites are so Slooooowww to download that people give up in frustration. Which does nothing to build readership.
ReplyDeleteIt has always been my contention that cramming so much content, photos, videos, copy and ads on each webpage may please the designers but is a pain for readers.
How much cleaner and how those pages wouldl POP if newspaper web designers had to view their work on dial-up instead of the fastest possible Internet connection ...
Mozilla Adblock plus - nukes 'em all.
ReplyDeleteSuch advertising is annoying and unfortunate, to be sure, but would you rather the company walk away from the revenue? people are always grousing about things gannett does to generate revenue, but if you don't generate revenue and you're a public company you eventually have to cut expenses.
ReplyDeleteAll true about new sources of revenue, Anon@8:46. But where and when do you draw a line?
ReplyDelete