Tuesday, June 21, 2005
BG Daily News managing editor responds
On Saturday, I blogged my thoughts about the Daily News and online readership and finally sent the link to a general editorial address this morning. I received a very quick reply from Mr. Mike Alexieff Managing Editor, Daily News, Bowling Green, Ky. I must admit I was most impressed. I also noticed he checked me out a little by poking around my website(s), thanks Mike! I asked him for permission to post his reply and he agreed.
-----Original Message----- From: Mike Alexieff [email addressed removed] Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 10:20 AM To: [soky] Subject: Daily News David, Thanks for directing me to your blog. It looks interesting and I'll check it regularly. A few thoughts about your post re: the Daily News. First, concerning the features and feel of the site, we are currently working on a redesign which is scheduled to debut around mid-July. Second, our circulation is actually increasing. May's numbers, which I got yesterday, show us up 5.6 percent over a year ago. We are one of only two dailies in Kentucky that have shown circulation growth over the past three years. (The other is Elizabethtown.) Third, your suggestions to make the site more interactive are worth exploring. Several of them will likely be incorporated in the new site. We do have a comment section, which is titled "Sound Off," in the left side menu. We are staying away from registration because we feel that it is intrusive. If I have to register to look at a Web site, I skip it. (With the exception of a few newspaper sites and personal interest sites.) However, we will likely include some sort of opt-in membership. I send you an e-mail when we get the new site up and look forward to your thougths on it. Finally, as you can probably guess, we don't have six figures to spend on the site. Probably closer to four. Again, thanks for the comments and suggestions. Feel free to contact me anytime, and you can add me to your list of readers. Mike. Mike Alexieff Managing Editor Daily News, Bowling Green, Ky. (270) 783-3235 [email addressed removed]
I am genuinely impressed that the Managing Editor found it worth his time to read and respond to my comments. I really like the information he offered as well! The fact they are working on a new website is exciting and I look forward to it. I was also impressed to learn in a separate email that www.bgdailynews.com is now averaging above 1 million page views and more than 250,000 unique visitors per month.
One point about "registration." I agree! My comments were abbreviated so I don't think I was clear, but to his point regarding registered access to read the content I agree whole heartedly. I've had a few websites make the switch to subscriber based (free or paid), and in every case I have found other less intrusive sources for my information.
That said, I do subscribe or register for websites that I choose to be involved in through forums, comments and the like. Giving people the opportunities to interact with the website for article comments, story discussions or ask a writer questions could engage the community and get more people involved. I think people would be willing to register for this and even create online profiles and offer more information. Then, by doing periodic polls and surveys of the registered users you can get a picture of who they are, what they are interested in and as much economic / demographic information as they are willing to share. That's really what I was eluding to.
To Mike! I hope you're not to critical of my writing structure/style but knowing you may peek in once in a while has me using the grammar and spell checker more often. (grin) I spent some time as a superintendent of public affairs, and our chief editor learned to overlook my idiotic word structure and found a gem or two in my blathering. I hope you do too. Welcome and thank you again.
