Personally, I don't want to spend the money to get one of my own. I already use my personal camera, laptop, phone and car to do job-related stuff. The only one of those things I get paid back for is a paltry 28 cents a mile on the car. So I don't give sources my cell phone number. (We have "newsroom" cell phones that I'm pretty sure send radioactive waves directly into the ear of their user.) I also have never seen one of these mysterious things. And if you gave it out to a source, wouldn't you have to say, only call me on this once. I won't have it next time you want to reach me.
Anyway, enough about what we don't have and wish we did. The truth is, there is a sudden push in the newsroom to acknowledge the need for a bigger, better web presence. It's true, and it's here to stay. Even the New York Times is going behind a pay wall. (Big news, you hadn't heard?) So its a relief that not only is the newspaper getting with the times and embracing social media, but we're getting serious about a new Web site designed to give us the freedom and tools to create, if not awesome, at least good multimedia packages.
One of my ideas was a quick hit one that got a thumbs up. We have an online edition that people have to pay for. Before I joined the staff, the free Web site didn't even tell readers they weren't getting the whole story, that if they wanted it, they would have to pay for it. For some readers, we just looked like a bunch of jerks who didn't know how to report on anything.
Then we started adding at tag that said "read the full story" in print or online. Online where? So I said, let's put a hyperlink after that sentence that leads to the subscription page. How is that not the circulation desk's most immediate demand? Those people are charged not only with ensuring the newspaper gets delivered, but also that people subscribe and stay subscribers. I don't care whose idea it was. I just hope it works.
That might lend more credibility to my other suggestions.
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