Old dogs use old tricks

Sometimes it’s pretty easy to see why print journalism is so behind most other mainstream media outlets.

It seems that a major portion of its problems stem from its unwillingness to change its approach or accept anything new. In various situations, it’s probably a good thing that print journalists stick to their guns, but the following situation demonstrates how insane print journalists can be.

Major newspapers around the country announced this week that they’re adopting a “crazy” new idea on their Web sites called “links.”

I’m sure not many of you are familiar with this World Wide Web process known as linking, but let me explain it to you quickly: Major papers like The New York Times, USA Today and The Washington Post now allow stories on their sites to have a little section where if you click on it, you’ll be transported to an outside media outlet that provides supplemental content.

And according to New York Times article published Sunday, links are not a new thing.

Wow, who knew?

Now, I understand that newspapers have been reluctant to reference other content because they are so ingrained in the old ways of never letting another publication break a story. Nevertheless, their inability to keep up with more interactive media, like blogs, is one of the reasons that newspapers are behind in the first place.

Although the credibility of blogs is always in question, what they do well is collect a wide variety of opinions and information from all over the world and put them in one place. Bloggers don’t seem to be worried about being first on the scene like some of the older journalists, and they really do provide solid information. For newspapers to never accept this principle – even a little bit – until now is just stupid.

Even worse, instead of just admitting that links are a great idea and a widely accepted (and expected) process for online news reading, the old brass at the New York Times are acting like they created the idea. They go as far as to say they had an idea for this all the way back in June of this year. How could they have held out on us ignorant readers for so long?

The fact that they have to announce the adoption of links is ridiculous. It may seem like a major deal to old school journalists, but for most online Times readers, implementing links is not only not a big deal, it’s probably expected.

It is understandable for the old guard media outlets to clash with the newbies like blogs in the battle over credibility or use of sources – but this is not one of those times.

Here, the newspapers are trying to look down on the Internet and blogs and their smugness is inexcusable. No matter if they think it’s a big deal for them or not, this is one instance when I’m a little embarrassed to be a journalist.