Newspapers Purging Websites Of ‘News’

The LA Times has a new website! So does Newsday! And you know both these papers are in some serious trouble, so these redesigns better work. What’s their secret success formula? Not so much boring “news”.

The new LAtimes.com rolled out today, and it’s not so bad at first glance—lots more black-and-white than their old site, mimicking NYTimes.com. One difference, though: At NYTimes.com, you can scroll down the page and find listings for World, US, NY/Region, Politics—”news” things! Scroll down from the top of page at the new LAT site and you find: Health, Food, Education, Technology, Sports, Blogs, Columns, Opinion, Photos & Video, Summer Hot List, and “Your Scene, Your Comments.” Did you miss the, say, ‘International news’ section? It is way up at the top in tiny tiny type. Below the top fifth or so of the page, there is no “hard news” at all.

Then there is this thing:

The new Newsday.com does have its own Facebook-like status report on top (cute!!!) but does not, apparently, have “news.” Do pictures count as news?