10 Reasons Newspapers Suck on the Web

I read a lot of news on the web, and I’ll tell you, it’s terribly annoying, because so many newspapers do the web badly. No wonder newspapers hate the internet; They fail miserably on it. Here’s an industry whose days are numbered, and what do they do on the medium that is killing them? Adopt the practices of the worst of the worst scammers, and then complain that no one wants to pay for their “respectable” product. Please!

Here are 10 reasons newspapers are failing on the web:

1. Pop under ads. We’ve all got pop-up blockers now, so you serve up pop-under ads that linger in the background. Ooh, tricked me! Classy.
2. Dancing ladies in silhouette, selling mortgages. You sully yourself by the poor quality of advertisers you keep. You’re like a Wal-Mart truck heading down the highway with naked lady mud flaps.
3. Multi-page stories and slideshows that require me to click for more — even though the concept of pages makes no sense on the internet. Why? Only to show me more ads. Bastards!
4. You actually believe the nasty comments on articles on your site are a guilty pleasure for readers. Truth? They make me digusted with my neighbors and wanting to take a shower.
5. 10,000 items I don’t care about on a web page are not a good experience.
6. You devote just 10% of the page to the story I want to read.
7. Splash “Welcome” pages featuring some kind of advertisement when I come visit you via a link from another site, Facebook, Twitter, or something. You are insane if you think such a page is welcome. For every one who watches the splash page, there must be a dozen of us who either click “skip” or leave.
8. Everything you have to offer is on your home page. Don’t act like a cheap whore. Show us some respect!
9. Classifieds. Ha ha. Cute.
10. You are my local paper. Yet, you blast me with news of the latest Hollywood celebrity who’s crashed a car and is going into rehab and you frontpage the crime in some village miles away in some hollow of the state where you have 10 home delivery subscriptions (but are hoping for 11!). Yet somehow you can’t be bothered to tell me why half the city whose name is in your nameplate had a blackout yesterday. What exactly do you think you are good for?

Why do you think newspapers are so terrible at the internet? Tell me, please!

The serious point here is that the format of your web presence provides a context by which you are judged. Every element of your site matters, not just your editorial.