This past week my journalism class went to tour The Washington Post. Our tour guide Mark Smith, mobile editor, explained the company looks at metrics to know what stories do well which ones that don’t, and concurrent - how many are actively reading. Smith tries to reinforce good headlines in order to grab the reader's attention when skimming the page. He continued to explain certain aspects of his job and why social media is crucial. Based on his talk here are the things The Washington Post does well and what they could improve on.
The Washington Post does several things well to keep the reader coming back. The company helps readers come back by having their website in an app, which makes it more accessible. Mark Smith noted it helps grow the traffic to mobile. In addition, by having Twitter, it helps keep the reader engaged because a majority of young readers look on Twitter to get a quick snippet of the news. Snapchat Discover is another way Smith told us they keep the readers engaged and coming back because it is a quicker way for people to tap the top stories of that day. Another way The Washington Post improves its metrics is by having the Daily 202 - a quick briefing of the top political stories. Although this aspect of the Washington Post is helpful for readers they should broaden the Daily 202 or make a similar one just for the top stories that do not pertain to a particular section of the news. For example, The New York Times has a daily briefing which sums up the top stories for that day.
Some downfalls of the Washington Post are that people have to pay to subscribe when most could get free news through their televisions or their local news sites. It turns readers away since they can get their news source somewhere else. Of course, the newspaper needs subscribers to make the company run.They should have a loyalty program in place for subscribers, so they get loyal customers to renew their subscription every year. A lot of companies have student discounts, which the Washington Post should do in order to gain a younger readership.
Another downfall of The Washington Post is that most stories on the front page are political breaking news and local news. This turns readers away since most just want to know the top stories overall, not just in politics. Readers have to go up to the header and click ‘National’ news to get the top stories in America. Most Americans do not have time and the purpose of the front page is to be able to skim the current events of the day.
Overall, the Washington Post is a great newspaper that keeps on growing in size. It is seen as a reliable source for the news. In the future, The Washington Post should explore other new social media outlets in order to be on top of the next trend.
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