ONA: Why aren’t news sites more fun?

Steve Safran October 18th, 2007

The always lively Rob Curley of LoudonExtra.com (at washingtonpost.com) admits that “one of the things newspaper sites aren’t is playful.” At ONA Thursday afternoon, Curley got a laugh from the audience at the “Becoming a Community Evangelist” seminar when he asked “When was the last time you heard someone say ‘I went to washingtonpost.com last night and I was on there for 2 hours - I just lost myself.’” It’s true - there is fun content to be found on plenty of news sites, but newsrooms fear featuring it. You’ll find “odd” or “strange” stories on front pages sometimes, but it’s almost like it’s a dirty secret. The fear is that the audience won’t take a site seriously if it’s fun. Get over it. Rob’s right.