Media relations professionals too often overlook the online opportunities of news sites. Their content is updated constantly, they're available 24 hours a day and they hardly
ever leave ink on your fingers. Mike Simpson, VP of content and executive producer for canoe.ca, a Canadian news site, talked with PR NEWS about the nuances his site offers and
where PR professionals fit into it.
PR NEWS: Do online news sites approach stories differently than offline newspapers?
Mike Simpson: A little bit. We're all journalists so if it's a story in the traditional media, then it's a story with us. Where the difference occurs is we look for the
immediacy in a story so we can put some interactive elements into it. Obviously when you're dealing with a limitless space you can afford to put up more information than a
traditional newspaper. So we look for opportunities to add links or get a chat room going between our audience and the principle of a story, because part of the story is the
conversation that is happening around the news.
PRN: What types of stories make the best chat room scenarios?
MS: It has to be big enough. It also depends on what type of story we're talking about. Hard news that is hot drives us. Like right now, gas prices are hot, so we are trying
to put as many interactive legs on it by opening up a news group where people can talk about where the lowest gas prices are in their town.
PRN: What kind of soft news, that a PR person would pitch you, is worthy of being the subject in your chat room?
MS: Spotlighting a Canadian book author. If PR can make that route a lot easier to do, then chances are we'll be taking advantage of it because it's an opportunity to have our
readers, in a sense "meet" the author.
PRN: Does 'interactivity' on your site always mean hosting a chat room?
MS: Not necessarily. We did a story about an author who had written a how-to book. Afterwards, we offered our readers the opportunity to email us questions they had concerning
the book, which we [electronically] bundled and sent over to the author who then replied on his own time. It was relatively easy and a very inexpensive way of readers being able
to talk to the author.
PRN: So with all this interactivity and immediacy in your stories, how does that affect lead-times?
MS: We can turn around a story as quickly as we want. If there's a news release that is coming out at noon and we know about it ahead of time, we're able to post it the same
time it's released. But, like anybody else, we like lead times. Everything must go through the journalistic filter. A reporter just doesn't take a press release and put it
online. It's not a story until it goes through the system.
PRN: Recently a case study put out by Middleberg & Associates said that information found on the Web was lacking in credibility. Do you find your readers not trusting what
they read on your site?
MS: I can't say they have. The news sources that we use are pretty traditional in the sense that our readers would easily identify them, like AP or Reuters. Those are very
credible sources. So when those brand names are on our site, I don't see how the credibility factor would be any less just because our audience reads it from a screen and not
from a newspaper. There is certainly a case to be made for lack of credibility when you get into the chat areas. There the journalistic filter is off. People are going in and
saying what they want.
PRN: But as for original content, don't most online newsrooms house less of a staff? Isn't credibility affected because there are fewer eyes editing the work?
MS: There usually are fewer people working in online newsrooms than with a typical newsroom. But the reporters we hired have all come from a newspaper background, so they are
used to dealing with that environment, and they treat every story as they would on a newspaper.
PRN: Does having fewer reporters make you rely more on PR for getting stories?
MS: I wouldn't say I rely on them. I certainly am aware of the stuff they send to us by email and the stuff that I see on the newswire. And we will look for that kind of
stuff if there is a national play to the story. It might be statistical in origin and we'll go with it.
PRN: If you had to rely on one method of getting stories which one would you choose?
MS: That would be tough...I'd have to go with the wire service.
PRN: If we could fast-forward 20 years, do you think traditional newspapers will be extinct?
MS: No. Newspapers still deliver a focused, localized product. I think people who get on the subway and read on the way to work would find it difficult doing that with a
laptop.
(Simpson, 416/947-2154)
Mike Simpson is Vice President-Content and Executive Producer of the CANOE Web site, a leading Canadian news and information portal. Mike has spent the last three years at
CANOE, joining the team as news producer. Before that, he was with the Toronto Sun newspaper for 19 years, starting out in the sports department and rising to executive sports
editor before moving over to news as an associate managing editor.
Simpson is speaking at the PR NEWS seminar, "Strategic Online Communications," currently being held in Toronto. Look for more coverage in upcoming issues.