Online Archiving Can Be Tricky
Many reporters who maintain websites archive their online clips simply by linking to them. But that’s not always easy, given that many newspapers take articles offline after a certain period, or lock them away in paid-only archives.
To get around these issues, some reporters convert their articles into pdf files or take screenshots of the webpages on which they appear. Others simply cut and paste the text of their stories into their own webpages – a practice that can present copyright dilemmas.
Shawn Levy, film critic for The Oregonian, does his best to archive his online reviews, but as he notes on his homemade website, “This is a little tricky.”
Levy explains that, “due to long-standing contracts between the owners of the newspaper and various electronic archiving services, my work doesn’t stay online on The Oregonian’s website for very long.”
So he includes links to The Oregonian’s main film and TV page and its online archive. But he also links to archives of his articles at Metacritic.com and Rottentomatoes.com, two movie review sites.
“I think any working journalist who thinks of him or herself as a writer primarily ought to have the ability to gather all of his or her work in a single place, and a personal website is perfect for that,” Levy says. “Given the perilous state of journalism as a profession issuing weekly paychecks, I think establishing a beachhead for oneself on the web is extremely important.”
Then there’s the case of Thomas Crampton, a former reporter for The New York Times and International Herald Tribune. When the two papers’ websites were recently merged, Crampton discovered to his horror that his online stories had disappeared. “You erased my career,” Crampton wrote in a post that quickly circulated around the blogosphere. Times techies vowed to fix the problem.
Sreenivasan, who once lost hundreds of online stories when a former employer deleted them, advises reporters to use the “Save Page” function in their web browers to save articles as soon as they're posted.
Creating a Site Can Be a Challenge
Many companies offer users the ability to create free blogs or websites within minutes (see link below), but Willoughby Mariano, a crime reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, didn't like the prepackaged look of those sites.
"The pre-made templates look generic," she says. "You can spot them a mile away."
Mariano was lucky - her sister is a web designer. "She pointed me to a good, flash-based site called Pokform that requires little to no technical skill to operate. You don’t have to learn HTML. You just need a little patience and time. My site was running after a couple of days," she says.
Mariano's advice? "Find an expert. Web designers pity us newsies. They’re usually willing to help for free."
Mariano's website has the usual article links and online resume, but there's been an unexpected benefit to having it: Building trust with her sources.
"I deal with a lot of people who are not willing to talk to a reporter," she says. "My website and blog on OrlandoSentinel.com have been good tools to introduce myself to wary sources and coax them into talking. They help them understand my approach to journalism, and let them know they’re in good hands."
Reporters Uneasy With PR Learn to Promote Themselves
Sreenivasan says that for too long, reporters didn’t worry about promoting themselves and their work. “The attitude was, 'The mothership – the paper - will take care of me,’” he says.
Now, he adds, “The best way to control what people see about you online is to have your own website. You create a portfolio of your best work, and you control how people see it.”
As Harper puts it: “We all have to promote ourselves and be entrepreneurial, whether we have steady jobs or four jobs or are pure freelancers.”
Learn more about cheap and easy ways to archive your clips, create a blog or start your own website.
Learn more about ways to establish your presence online.
