CN "Facelift" Explained

Online readers of the Courier News are invited to view a video that explains the changes in the site's look.

Click here for the link.

It seems that Middlesex and Somerset counties will be the main focus of the new site. A link to Top News for Plainfield was vacant this morning, although the Plainfield InJersey site is still good.

One of the quirks of online news sources is a feature called "Related Stories." It kind of bulks up the content, but the stories may be quite old in the news cycle. It's a clever gimmick that, in my opinion, leads the reader down memory lane when what readers really want is the news of the day. One example I saw yesterday was a local breaking news story with a link to Seattle homicides that, because I read The Seattle Times online, I recognized as a very tragic story that happened months ago. Today there is a "related stories" link to something that happened in Los Angeles in September!

As we all have heard many times over in 2010, news media are in the process of reinventing themselves to fit the times. People are getting their news on electronic gizmos all day, making the ink-and-paper model obsolete for many readers. Bloggers are treading on the hallowed ground of news reporting and "citizen journalists" are urged to join in after 20 minutes of training.

In the overall scheme of things for the so-called legacy media (what your parents grew up reading), Plainfield may emerge as a less attractive subject than more affluent towns that yield more advertising revenue. Even the hyperlocal "Patch" blogs are tending to focus on towns with more spending power than cities where dollar stores prevail.

So check out the new format and see both what you think and what they think about news coverage. The old adage, "The more things change, the more they remain the same," does not seem to be operative when it comes to delivering the news.

--Bernice