Has B2B Bitten Off More Than It Can Chew Where E-News Is Concerned?
by Howard Rauch, President, Editorial Solutions, Inc.
Maybe the heavy workloads placed on editors via having to deliver top content for print and e-
news is asking too much. That possibility seems to becoming more of a reality the deeper I get
into identifying e-news editorial quality issues. You may recall from previous commentaries that a
few months ago, I embarked on an e-news study that eventually will reflect practices of 50 sites.
This commentary is an update based on data involving 26 sites that delivered 229 e-news articles.
To recap briefly, my evaluation involves e-news delivery assessment in terms of eight factors:
Urgency (originally I settled for relevance), enterprise, presence of direct quotes, lead value, Fog
Index grade level, average sentence length, word count and use of embedded links. For the most
part, the latter factor is a non-event. Its absence or presence doesn't necessarily affect quality of
individual e-news items. Besides, many editors are still learning how to execute links in the most
effective way. At some point, however, absence or presence might become a key competitive
analysis factor. Meanwhile, we should be more concerned about other findings. For instance:
Look for additional updates and commentary in future postings. Later on, I'll devote a special
discussion to competitive analysis implications of delivering second-best e-news coverage.
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by Howard Rauch, President, Editorial Solutions, Inc.
Maybe the heavy workloads placed on editors via having to deliver top content for print and e-
news is asking too much. That possibility seems to becoming more of a reality the deeper I get
into identifying e-news editorial quality issues. You may recall from previous commentaries that a
few months ago, I embarked on an e-news study that eventually will reflect practices of 50 sites.
This commentary is an update based on data involving 26 sites that delivered 229 e-news articles.
To recap briefly, my evaluation involves e-news delivery assessment in terms of eight factors:
Urgency (originally I settled for relevance), enterprise, presence of direct quotes, lead value, Fog
Index grade level, average sentence length, word count and use of embedded links. For the most
part, the latter factor is a non-event. Its absence or presence doesn't necessarily affect quality of
individual e-news items. Besides, many editors are still learning how to execute links in the most
effective way. At some point, however, absence or presence might become a key competitive
analysis factor. Meanwhile, we should be more concerned about other findings. For instance:
- Each news item can earn a maximum score of 100 points. (You can check out how this
works by referring to the explanation still appearing on my Editing Tips page). For each
site's "breaking news" postings on a given day, an average score is calculated based on
individual article scores. So far, the highest average score achieved is 70.6 points. Only
eight of the 26 sites reviewed earned a score of 60 points or higher. The rest of the sites
are stuck with average performance scores in the 36-59 range. - Evidence of enterprise is lacking in 153 articles reviewed -- a disappointing 66.8 percent of
the total items assessed. "Evidence" is worth a bit of definition. What I am seeking is an
indication that the writer went beyond the original press release -- if that was the source --
in search of additional quotes. An even more encouraging sign would be that the article did
not launch from a canned announcement. Instead, it reflected personal coverage of a
convention or other important industry function. - Foggy writing doesn't seem to concern most e-news writers or their editors. According to
posted discussions of what makes for effective web writing, fast-paced content is a must.
Further, fast-paced writing should not be something that requires experienced editors to
take a course. Unfortunately, the reality is that foggy writing already runs rampant in many
news articles appearing in our magazines. So why should things be better on the web?
Anyway, of the 229 articles assessed, 125 (54.1 percent) defied readability thanks to Fog
Index levels exceeding 13.0. You may recall that the preferred FI grade level range is 10-
12. Further, 91 articles -- 39.6 percent -- had average sentence lengths exceeding 25
words. FI theory stipulates ASL should be 20 words. Finally, if e-news is supposed to
launch quickly into an article, some of us are heading in the opposite direction. I found 107
articles (36.1 percent) where the opening sentence ran 30 words or longer. - Direct quote usage -- particularly of the end-user variety -- is inconsistent. Of the 229
articles reviewed, 76 (33.2 percent) used no quotes. Another 95 (41.5 percent) used one
quote. Running a single quote in an article would be okay if obtained via personal interview
with a source. However, many quotes read as if they were lifted straight off a press
release. This shortfall relates back to the low showing for enterprise mentioned earlier. - Websites don't always put their best foot forward when their prime news source is a
syndicated service. Actually, articles extracted from newspapers sometimes may be better
than the content a staff generates on its own. On the other hand, when the "news story"
essentially is a word for word rendition of a press release, the reader is plagued by excess
"puffy" language that would (or should) be edited out under other circumstances. - Last but not least, we should not overuse e-news frequency to the point that it becomes a
nuisance. E-news alerts that plug advertisers or publication services are not what readers
hoped for when they subscribed to our e-newsletters. Our first priority is to deliver high-
value, exclusive, fast-paced articles. Clearly, some of us need to work much harder to
achieve that objective.
Look for additional updates and commentary in future postings. Later on, I'll devote a special
discussion to competitive analysis implications of delivering second-best e-news coverage.
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Editorial Solutions, Inc.