How Journalists Should End Every Article - With Tasty Hyperlinks

Over at the online journalism blog Paul Bradshaw has a great post on the editorial value of links.

He writes:

Yesterday I discovered that the Birmingham Post features writer Jo Ind has started incorporating Del.icio.us social bookmarks into her articles. If you look at the bottom of this health article you’ll see the following line:

“To learn more about Select Research and the body volume index, see Jo Ind’s suggested links or visit her blog.”

 

And he is absolutely right to take a moment and praise Jo Ind. In my conversations with editors I've actually had to argue the value of linking to outside sources. Now personally, I think this debate is dead and decomposed but, just in case, it goes something like this.

• A: We are in the business of informing people.
• B: Having links to good information is an editorial service
• C: If you provide good links, people will rely on you as a "news recomender" and come back for more.

Take a moment to appreciate that argument and you can understand why we have Digg, Newsvine, Reddit, NewsTrust and other news aggregators. The links that are produced can ADD value to a news article produced by a journalist. That's why most of the news aggregators (NewsTrust included) create widgets that you can incorporate into your content with simple cutting and pasting.

Here's an example from our recent collaboration with Scientific American. One article they produced was on flourescent light bulbs and their impact on the environment. It was a great story. 

Now imagine you are a first time Scientific American reader - you ended up on this article vertically through some search engine or clicking a link. After all, this is how tons of traffic is shifted around on the web - through search.

You reach the end of the article, but you want more. Odds are you are interested in the environment, that's what your search terms were about when you landed on this page. Who knows, you might been interested in just this specific story. Instead of assuming the job had been completed by this one story, at the end of this article Sciam gave the reader a blast of information. They included a NewsTrust.net widget that displayed the top rated news articles on the topic of the environment (see image below).

One of three things will happen at this point.

1. The reader got all the information they needed and continues surfing the internet for other articles.
2. The reader liked this specific story and submits it to NewsTrust for review - believing it should be on the list of top rated news stories.
3. The reader sees the headline of a news story on this widget they found interesting and clicks over to read it.

What does this translate to for Sciam?

1. That reader may never return to Sciam again? Or at least - not until a search term brings them back - outcome is neutral to bad.
2. Sciam gets more readers and constructive feedback on the article - outcome is positive
3. Sciam becomes more than just a news source - they are a portal. The reader knows they can come back to Sciam not just for original environmental news, but to find out what is going on all over the web. Outcome is positive.

Notice that the only bad outcome is with option number one - and that is the ONLY option if more links aren't provided at the bottom.

The beauty of all this: It takes literally seconds to insert a NewsTrust widget. Here's a tutorial.

Step one: Go to NewsTrust.net 's Tools page where you will find a link to our widget maker.
Step two: Create your widget: It's a point-and-click operation. Just pick a subject, a listing (I suggest top rated), source type, etc. Don't forget to specify how many articles you want listed on your widget. Unless you know what size you need your widget to be, leave it on auto.
Step three: Copy the html/javascript produced below.
Step four: Paste the script where you want it to appear.

And then you're done. They also look great in the sidebar of blogs. If the topic you are looking for doesn't have a widget - contact us.