Opinion: Hard News Deserves Rightful Place in the EBC


Opinion: Hard News Deserves Rightful Place in the EBC
By Deepest House
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(Europeia – September 19, 2017) - This term the Ministry of Communications has marginalized the value of hard news stories. Minister of Communications JayDee has dubbed hard news “EBC Updates” and sequestered them into an EBC sub-forum reducing their visibility and potentially reader engagement, in favor of so-called “High Return Media” which feature prominently in the Europeian Broadcasting Corporation’s forum main page.

The term “EBC Update” is a misnomer that minimalizes the importance and purpose of hard news, and inherently infers that the content lacks substantial news value. “High Return Media” is nothing more than a made up and cumbersome term for the industry standard vernacular “feature story.” Using terminology inconsistent with the ministry’s past use, and inconsistent with professional standards, is confusing and a disservice to the reader.

JayDee justified moving hard news to a separate sub-forum on several faulty premises. The first faulty premise was that these supposedly more important articles needed more time to appear in the “News” drop down on the Europeian forum main page, before being bumped off by so-called “EBC Updates.” When challenged that the most important stories are the stories that generate engagement, to his credit he backed off calling “high return media” more important.

According to my conversations with Europeian citizens, most visit the EBC directly for news stories, leaving the “News” dropdown on the main page as a barely used tool that offers limited value. With the primary reason for creating the sub-forum not having much, if any, practical value to the end user, the change is not necessary. Coupled with the demotion of important and engaging hard news stories into a sub-forum, the decision is questionable and should be reversed.

The second incorrect assumption was that “High Return Media,” is somehow more engaging than hard news. I do not believe that the data bears this out. During my most recent term as Minister of Communications, the hard news stories, or “EBC Updates” as referred to currently, generated much greater discussion than feature stories (High Return Media). Over the course of my term, the EBC generated more than 500 comments, with thousands of page views, primarily through hard news. The trend continues this term, with early results demonstrating that hard news stories published in the “EBC Updates” sub-forum generating much more substantial engagement and discussion than feature stories published in the main EBC forum.

An example of the importance of, and impact that, hard news articles can make is demonstrated by my piece titled “Senator JayDee Blindsides Rand During Senate Confirmation,” found here http://s6.zetaboards.com/Europeia/topic/10013388/1/. I did not choose to highlight this piece because it features JayDee, and he is currently minister and we are discussing his current policies. Rather, look at the comments generated by the piece and the overall outcome of that reporting. That was actual journalism that reported on the ongoing confirmation hearing. The coverage informed the previously unaware public and generated substantial engagement. It also compelled an apology from JayDee. This would, undoubtedly, be identified as an “EBC Update” in the current Ministry of Communications and be tucked away into a sub-forum rather than taking a prominent place in the EBC as merited. The news value and engagement generated is without question. JayDee himself even highlighted the importance of this particular piece of journalism in his town hall.

The public is very interested in the day-to-day events of Europeia, and the EBC should endeavor to cover as much as possible that is newsworthy. Hard news stories play an important role in our region, and they should not be marginalized by placement into an EBC sub-forum. All news coverage generated by the EBC should be treated equally, and the value of each piece is determined not by its style, but by its substance. The EBC does not produce content in such quantities that a separate sub-forum is needed based on the style of news story produced, and the dropdown news bar reason is without merit.

JayDee is off to a promising start as minister. There is nobody in the region who is better suited right now to take on the job. He has grown tremendously in the past three terms, from staffer to deputy, and now to minister. Personally, I want JayDee to succeed. I recognized him for an outstanding term during my term as minister, identified him to serve as a deputy last term while I served as vice president, and recommended him to the current administration to serve as minister this term. I also want the Ministry of Communications and the EBC to succeed. Hard news and feature news are equally important components of the news coverage generated by the EBC. The EBC will be most successful when its content is located centrally, with equal visibility for all pieces, and the articles generating discussion based on their merits.
 
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Oh please.

This so called "hard news" has to be reported on the day that event happens or it's "late news." Updates serve no real purpose, we can see all of this "news" on the forums ourselves. The only real purpose they serve is to improve writers writing ability and seeing as it's just yourself and JayDee who mainly write the updates, it's not really serving much purpose.

The actual articles take much longer to write and have so much more effort put in them. They absolutely deserve a more prominent place than something that takes an hour at most to write and serves no purpose seeing as I can find the thing myself with a quick look at the forum.
 
Punchwood said:
Oh please.

This so called "hard news" has to be reported on the day that event happens or it's "late news." Updates serve no real purpose, we can see all of this "news" on the forums ourselves. The only real purpose they serve is to improve writers writing ability and seeing as it's just yourself and JayDee who mainly write the updates, it's not really serving much purpose.

The actual articles take much longer to write and have so much more effort put in them. They absolutely deserve a more prominent place than something that takes an hour at most to write and serves no purpose seeing as I can find the thing myself with a quick look at the forum.
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Thank you for demonstrating complete ignorance of media purpose and media strategy, as well as the actual mission of the Ministry of Communications in regard to its responsibilities with the EBC. That’s surprising, given your role as a deputy in the ministry. You quite frankly don’t know what you’re talking about.

The purpose of news is so that people have a one-stop shop for the latest events, and don’t have to search around the entire forum for the latest happenings. Not everyone has time for that, nor does everyone want to have to do that. I’ve not counted the amount of forums and subforums we have – but they are extremely vast. Timeliness is incredibly important – you are correct there, but that’s about the only thing you have right.

As I said, how much time someone spends on a piece is irrelevant if it isn’t interesting and doesn’t generate engagement. A piece that doesn’t generate engagement doesn’t deserve priority placement over pieces that do. A lot of times, feature pieces pretty much generate responses that amount to “cool story bro.” You want your pieces at the top of the EBC in pride of place for all to see? Write a quality piece that generates engagement and it will stay there. Write a piece that sucks, and it will fall to the bottom.
 
DH is definitely right here. Let's not hinder our own articles with this policy. People read the articles that matter, but we don't need to make it harder to get to them than necessary.
 
Kylia Quilor said:
And a subforum makes it harder? Are we really that lazy?
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I don't think it necessarily makes anything harder for the readers by putting things in the subforum, but I do think it might make things harder for the articles. Articles on controversial subjects are always going to draw more debate and attention than articles that are just informative, we can see this in the number of people that responded to the Writinglegend's article on the navy. People cared about the issue and had differing opinions, we commented and debated. This article is shaping up to be similar. However, when pieces don't have that spark of controversy to draw the views and comments, they're going to struggle to draw those views, and struggle harder to draw the views when they're in a subforum which the casual peruser of Europeia's forums is less likely to check than the main EBC forum when looking for news.

I think that makes sense, I literally woke up like five minutes ago and I don't feel entirely coherent yet.
 
This talk of "rightful place" is completely missing the mark. Our EBC updates do have a rightful place within the EBC. They are separated in a subforum within the EBC for the convenience of our readers. Anyone coming back from a hiatus or long LoA could easily catch up with the major events in Europeia by simply looking through the EBC updates subforum. This is in stark contrast to before when one would have to go gravedigging in the EBC for update articles. The idea was that r3n would be able to set up a script for us where EBC updates would be displayed at the top as well, but even if that's not done, this isn't the end of the world.
 
JayDee said:
This talk of "rightful place" is completely missing the mark. Our EBC updates do have a rightful place within the EBC. They are separated in a subforum within the EBC for the convenience of our readers. Anyone coming back from a hiatus or long LoA could easily catch up with the major events in Europeia by simply looking through the EBC updates subforum.
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Isn't that entirely the purpose of the EBC wire?
 
XIV said:
JayDee said:
This talk of "rightful place" is completely missing the mark. Our EBC updates do have a rightful place within the EBC. They are separated in a subforum within the EBC for the convenience of our readers. Anyone coming back from a hiatus or long LoA could easily catch up with the major events in Europeia by simply looking through the EBC updates subforum.
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Isn't that entirely the purpose of the EBC wire?
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The Wire is the news of the day, not the last month.
 
Kylia Quilor said:
XIV said:
JayDee said:
This talk of "rightful place" is completely missing the mark. Our EBC updates do have a rightful place within the EBC. They are separated in a subforum within the EBC for the convenience of our readers. Anyone coming back from a hiatus or long LoA could easily catch up with the major events in Europeia by simply looking through the EBC updates subforum.
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Isn't that entirely the purpose of the EBC wire?
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The Wire is the news of the day, not the last month.
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There is a record of every Wire post, so one could very easily gather the news of the month from various news of the day posts.
 
JayDee said:
This talk of "rightful place" is completely missing the mark. Our EBC updates do have a rightful place within the EBC. They are separated in a subforum within the EBC for the convenience of our readers. Anyone coming back from a hiatus or long LoA could easily catch up with the major events in Europeia by simply looking through the EBC updates subforum. This is in stark contrast to before when one would have to go gravedigging in the EBC for update articles. The idea was that r3n would be able to set up a script for us where EBC updates would be displayed at the top as well, but even if that's not done, this isn't the end of the world.
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If this op-ed is missing the mark, it's only because you're now moving the goal posts and the reasoning for the change.

Your original two stated reasons for the change were to allow feature stories to remain in the News drop down menu longer, and that they were more important. Nothing was ever said about reviewing historical news stories.

Indeed, as it currently stands on default settings, 11 news stories are visible in the main EBC forum, with the oldest having its most recent post on July 18. So someone who missed more than two months would still have everything on the first page. If they missed more than two months, a single click to the second page would get them even more stories and time covered.

And please stop calling them "updates." There is no such thing as an update. They are news stories, produced by journalists. Calling them an update is a gross disservice to what they are and the journalists who produce them.

Finally, let's not pretend that the EBC was cumbersome or difficult to navigate previously. It wasn't. There was no need, whatsoever, for the split of the EBC and the marginalization of hard news stories. Stories which, by all accounts, generate much more discussion and engagement than so-called High Return Media.

The bottom line is that you know your original reasons for the change are without merit, so you're backpedaling and attempting to create a new narrative around leaves of absence. Even that reasoning falls flat when examined.

The structure of the EBC was never an issue before. Eleven stories on the front page is sufficient. Adding a sub-forum does nothing of substance, except reduce visibility of the articles posted there without any good justification.
 
Calvin Coolidge said:
DH is definitely right here. Let's not hinder our own articles with this policy. People read the articles that matter, but we don't need to make it harder to get to them than necessary.
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This.

DH, this is a great article.
 
DH, I still stand by my statement that opinion pieces should be able to remain in the news dropdown longer. I did not, however, claim that hard news (I'll stop calling them updates) did not deserve to have its own place. I also never said hard news can't generate discussion. I simply said that the work of our AMs deserve more time in the "spotlight." That simply isn't possible with our hard news articles. Especially in times like this week when we have to release hard news articles daily for our town halls. I never even implied that hard news is less important. If you ask me, giving hard news its own subforum only maintains my belief that they are an important part of our communication strategy.

What I did say, however, is that our hard news creates the illusion of activity when really it's the Ministers doing all the work. Of the 12 articles in EBC Updates, 7 have been written entirely by me and all except for Gleg's articles have been edited by me. Furthemore, 26 out of 38 of these hard news articles have been written by the Minister. 19 which were written by yourself DH. The rest were written by Aditya, McEntire, Writinglegend, Darcness, Snowball, Vac, or myself (when I wasn't minister).
 
JayDee said:
DH, I still stand by my statement that opinion pieces should be able to remain in the news dropdown longer. I did not, however, claim that hard news (I'll stop calling them updates) did not deserve to have its own place. I also never said hard news can't generate discussion.

I simply said that the work of our AMs deserve more time in the "spotlight." That simply isn't possible with our hard news articles. Especially in times like this week when we have to release hard news articles daily for our town halls. I never even implied that hard news is less important. If you ask me, giving hard news its own subforum only maintains my belief that they are an important part of our communication strategy.

What I did say, however, is that our hard news creates the illusion of activity when really it's the Ministers doing all the work. Of the 12 articles in EBC Updates, 7 have been written entirely by me and all except for Gleg's articles have been edited by me. Furthemore, 26 out of 38 of these hard news articles have been written by the Minister. 19 which were written by yourself DH. The rest were written by Aditya, McEntire, Writinglegend, Darcness, Snowball, Vac, or myself (when I wasn't minister).
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JayDee,

You're right, you didn't imply that hard news is less important. You unequivocally stated that high return media is more important.

At the same time, the EBC will be able to continue our updating strategy without the fear of knocking the more important articles off the top of the page.
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I added the bold.

Again with moving the goal posts. Actual and perceived activity levels have nothing to do with the stated reasoning for the split. Beyond that, it doesn't matter who writes the hard news pieces. If you have a capable and prolific writer who takes them on as they come up, that just puts the ministry in a stronger position overall. Additional writers always participate, and opportunities are not in short supply for news or features.

I understand if you want to encourage additional writers for the hard news. There are a lot of ways to do it. One way not to do it is to segregate these stories into a sub-forum with less visibility for the journalists.

In the end, there was no need for this move, it accomplishes nothing, and is unpopular. I think we've run our course here and we aren't going to agree. I'll let you have the last word if you like.

 
You're right. I make mistakes, and calling hard news "less important" was one of them. I'll admit I have shifted the goalpost slightly but even as it is, the hard news gets more coverage and the opinion pieces do as well
 
The mission of the EBC has shifted from administration to administration, and will likely continue to do so.

The broader issue is that subforums tend to bury content, and should be presumptively disfavored. In some cases, there are good reasons for subforums -- separating the LMC into outlet-specific fora, for example. In other cases, the usefulness of a subforum is debatable -- for instance, I would personally not separate the debate forum from the rest of TRS, but I understand that some folks prefer a social forum that's mostly free of political chatter.

I don't think the distinction between "hard news" and opinion comes close to meeting the standard for creating a subforum. Frankly, it reflects a judgment that "hard news" has less valuable than opinion, but adopts the half-measure of relegating that content to a subforum where it presumably won't attract much attention, rather than following the judgment to its logical conclusion and ceasing to produce "hard news" altogether.
 
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