Will Sullivan is the “Nerd in Chief” of Journerdism.com. A constant student and teacher, Sullivan works from 9-7ish as the award-winning Interactive Director at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He’s innovated at more than a dozen news organizations from Sydney, Australia to Toledo, Ohio in roles from photographer to Editor in Chief.
RI- You are responsible for projects like Walking With Angels, what exactly do you do on a daily basis at STLtoday.com and what is your latest big project?
WS- Just to be clear, the Haiti project you refer to is from a previous job as Interactive Projects Editor at The Palm Beach Post in West Palm Beach, Florida. At my current job as Interactive Director at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, I help try to bring the newsroom into the 21st century and beyond. My recent big projects have been working on search engine optimization training/development changes within the newsroom, marketing and IT departments, as well as some new social media initiatives.
RI- What types of social media initiatives?
WS- We’re working with reporters to use social media tools to report faster and converse with their audience. We had great success during the 2008 election using tools like Twitter and Qik to report live from events and are building on that getting more people on board: http://www.stltoday.com/twitter
RI- Are you responsible for this seizure inducing layout or did someone’s grandson get to do the web design during March Madness?
WS- Holy Toledo! That’s quite remarkable and news to me. I believe it’s an total-page-buyout ad campaign though, not normal design (as you can see all the ads on the page are paid for by Mizzou). It’s a premium ad placement package that’s very expensive.
RI- Where were you Editor in Chief? What was that like and why did you transition away from it to become an Interactive Director?
WS- It was at the Independent Collegian in Toledo, Ohio. It was a great experience at my college newspaper learning all the roles in a newsroom and buisness organization and how to manage them. We were going through some rough times after going completely independent, breaking away from university control and funding. I left the job because I graduated.
RI- The Journerdism site is cleanly laid out. What is it built on? Why don’t we see newspaper websites this cleanly laid out?
WS- Journerdism is built on Word Press and probably needs a redesign soon. While I think that’s a pretty broad statement about all newspaper websites (they are improving… albeit slowly…), I think there’s a perfect storm of problems for newspapers’ design woes. To name a few:
- A daily tsunami of content in multiple forms every day, constantly, 365 days a year.
- Corporate design-by-committee templates that don’t allow any flexibility, customization or logic
- Antiquated content management systems that don’t embrace modern languages and technology
- An underdeveloped and antiquated advertising model that relies on annoyance and bigger, louder display graphic ads rather than quality or targeted relevant ads
- An unrealistic demand to squeeze every possible opportunity to monetize online revenues to account for the same revenue that print revenues did (decades ago in a time of total market control)
- Leadership that has enjoyed monopolistic control of their medium and who are averse to change or trying any new ideas (newspapers just copy other newspapers)
- Chronic organizational culture that fears or is antagonistic towards technology
- Leadership that doesn’t acknowledge, understand or respect user experience and the impact usability in design plays on their bottom line
RI- I didn’t see any of the Flip Video cameras on your picks page, as a matter of fact, I didn’t see any video cameras cheaper than $300. Do you really think that’s still necessary?
WS- If that’s what you can afford then rock it. Be careful on your audio with Flip’s though, there’s no control or external mic and users have no patience for horrible audio (they’ll generally tolerate bad video if the content is there). They also lack of removable memory, durability, zooming and overall video and audio quality. But it’s the message that matters, not the gear. We use point and shoot cameras for quick video and photos and they get the job done. We also use professional gear for larger projects and it gets the job done. We use mobile phones for live streaming video and it gets the job done. Use the tools that you can afford at your organization to deliver content.
RI- “What news outlets do you regularly visit to stay on top of news?” is a question I regularly ask non media/journalism professionals and most of the responses are something like, “I don’t. I have a cell phone and a computer and a TV so I figure that news will find me if it’s important”. What do you think of this newer mindset (news should find me) that the ubiquity of communications devices is creating?
WS- I’m one of them for the most part, except I’d add that I have RSS feeds, aggregation tools, smart filters and semantic recommendations feeding me my news. I think it’s fantastic to have so much choice and competition for audience’s attention. I wish more journalists acknowledged/understood this (specifically that there’s more competition that the local TV station… or if their lucky, and still work in a market with more than one newspaper, the other newspaper) so we could abandon 70 percent of the b.s. filler and wire in newspapers that is not unique and start focusing only on unique, original and relevant news reporting that no one else is doing anywhere. Competitive news markets produce great journalism.
RI- Do you own an eReader? Why or why not?
WS- No, but I’ve used a friend’s first generation Kindle though and enjoyed it. I’ve been considering the new Kindle, but have been hoping for some sort of open source effort to materialize.
RI- You are on a lot of social sites; where do you spend most of your time and why? Have you quit any?
WS- I use Delicious, Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook the most. Delicious is my library and archive. Twitter/FriendFeed is just like reading a bunch of tiny blogs and targeted news aggregation for my interests/people like me. Facebook is to keep up with friends and family. I try a lot of different sites to keep up on what’s developing on the web and see if there are opportunities for news organizations to partner or use them. I’ve tried many sites and didn’t love them so I don’t use them much anymore. Does that mean I have to delete my account also to quit it? Sometimes these companies evolve and improve so I like to have accounts with many to check in and see how things are changing.
RI- I have to admit, my favorite “interactive design” news site features are the NYTimes audio slideshows and the entire experience of Boston.com’s the Big Picture blog. Besides your own work, what do you like happening on news sites?
WS- The new news API’s being developed from the NYTimes, NPR and The Guardian are brilliant.
RI- Given the dramatic cutbacks/ layoffs/ furloughs/ hiring freezes in traditional media, what do you tell people / students when they ask you about getting into journalism?
WS- I tell them to not expect to work for the traditional media. This is the greatest time in the history for journalism (and the worst time for traditional media monopolies) — the ‘penny press’ just became pretty much free and accessible to everyone. There’s lots of opportunity out there.
RI- What should I be asking you right now?
WS- What’s the secret to life?
RI- Last thoughts? Thanks.
WS- These pretzels are making me thirsty
RI- Will Sullivan is available for consulting, freelance, teaching and speaking engagements at: will [at] journerdism.com
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