A local newspaper with a non-local website

As the decade draws to a close, we can look back at the way that the internet has changed the way we all live and work.  We have seen news organizations struggle over the past ten years as a result of increasing dependence on the internet and a more technology-focused world.  Powerful newspapers like The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Boston Globe, as we all know, have had to face questions about whether news content they put online should be available to the general public or should be paid for.

At a time when print newspaper circulation is only going to decline from here, it is essential, regardless of whether the content will be available for a fee or not, that every newspaper maintain a quality website that people will want to visit and will find informative and interesting.  Unfortunately, The Walpole Times has failed in this area.  The Times website, which is a "WickedLocal.com website", is increasingly becoming irrelevant to Walpole and the Walpole community.  It does not provide local news, and rarely provides the content that is actually published in each week's edition of the Times.

I understand the choices that newspapers must make as to whether they want to make all of their content available on a free website.  Newspapers must incur some sort of revenue, and papers like The Walpole Times, which do fine financially yet still don't have a lot of money in the bank, must balance basically giving content away for free with keeping people from canceling their paid subscriptions to the Times and turning to the free internet for local news.  It appears that the Times has decided to completely ignore local news for their website, and instead focus on statewide issues.

Here is a sampling of some of the articles I observed on the homepage of the Times this week.  None of these articles pertain to Walpole, and therefore none of these should have been posted on the Walpole Times website.  Yet they were all posted prominently on the homepage, and in fact some were listed under "Most Popular Stories".

Treasury's Abandoned Property Division nets $76M in revenue
Coakley camp tweaks Brown on taxes
MARSHFIELD STATEHOUSE ROUNDUP: Financial crisis, Kennedy top state stories for 2009
Massachusetts has weathered fiscal storm better than most, but more pain ahead
May I Ask? Seasonal Affective Disorder
Stimulus cash a building block for state
2009: State Government Year In Review
State still could lose a Congressional seat
Feds award nearly $57 million for homeless grants in Massachusetts

I do not want to read about how the State Treasurer's office has brought in $76 million in revenue for the state.  I do not need to know the Marshfield State House Roundup or that Martha Coakley has once again leveled an attack against the Scott Brown campaign for the US Senate.  If I wanted to read any of this, I would go to one of the more well-known and more connected news websites like Boston.com or BostonHerald.com.  The Times website should stick to local politics and local issues.

At the minimum, the Times website should provide snippets of information about local events and issues leading up to the paper's publication.  Each Wednesday, for example, the Times website could feature small excerpts from each article that will be published in the actual paper the next day.  That way, people would be enticed to purchase the Times or to look forward to getting it in the mail.  It would be a win-win for everybody, because the Times would make money, and local residents would have a website about local issues they could trust from a newspaper they trust.

If The Walpole Times fails to provide local content on its website, then it will find itself competing with the likes of WalpoleNews.com and Sam Obar 180.  Even former Times columnist Mike Iwanowicz has moved from the Times editorial page to an online blog, where he posts blurbs and thoughts.  WalpoleNews is also supposed to be heading towards adding advertising in the future, which would actually make WalpoleNews a financially-sound local news website that would have a viable opportunity to compete directly with the Times website for coverage of local news.

One final note: The reason that the Times website may not provide local content this particular week may be because Times staff are on vacation.  I am aware that Times reporter Keith Ferguson takes pride in updating the site regularly, but questions about what sorts of articles are being posted still need to be asked.