How newspaper sites need to change

Adrian Holovaty has some interesting things to say in response to the recent Bivings Report on US newspaper sites.

Here are a couple of gems:

"Journalists should have less of a concern of what is and isn't 'journalism', and more of a concern for important, focused information that is useful to people's lives and helps them understand the world."

And...

"Just about every newspaper Web site content-management system I've ever seen is unabashedly story-centric. Want to post event calendar information into your news-site CMS? Post it as a 'news article' object. Want to publish listings of recent crimes in your town? It goes in as a 'news article'. There's not much Joe Reporter, or even Jane Online Editor, can do about this, because Oh We've Invested So Much Into This CMS, and/or Our Newspaper Web Site Doesn't Employ Any Computer Programmers. (The latter of which makes as much sense as a film director refusing to employ cameramen or video editors.)"

Amen to that!