Newspapers Not Linking: Bad Policy or just stupidity? Plus Jon Stewart v. Jim Cramer

For months now, if not years, I have been reading newspaper articles online and found myself having to Google a company, phrase or website I’m interested in learning more about. Why is this? Why on earth are newspapers and other mainstream news organizations so repelled by the idea of adding links to their stories. There are of course exceptions, but it seems the de facto policy is to simply quote a source or mention something of interest and leave it at that… Reading the Nieman Journalism Lab’s blog today gave me great hope. First, I’m not the only one going crazy and second, perhaps by talking about this subject more, we can change this habit that has become so ingrained in the MSM.

Tim Windsor wrote today,

“It’s a great story. A magician posts videos of him shipping himself to Vegas from upstate New York via UPS. The Feds investigate. Turns out it’s a hoax and a publicity stunt. Hilarity ensues.

So far, so good. But you’re reading this online. What’s your first thought?

Right: Where’s the video?

You won’t find it in the AP retelling on the Newsday.com site.

You won’t find a link to the YouTube preview, or the special microsite set up to detail the fake journey.

You won’t find the links in the original story, in which the Syracuse Post-Standard is punked by the magician. (You will find the non-linked name of the web site, a sure sign that this is an automated port of a newspaper story)

And you won’t find them in the follow-up story on the Post-Standard either.”

Windsor continues to make his point crystal clear by giving more examples, but two very important points are: 1) News organizations who don’t link, are providing a disservice to their readers and 2) It just doesn’t make sense from an SEO perspective not to link. Want to know what’s even worse? Organizations who try and promote their blogs every chance they get (Editor & Publisher springs to mind) and yet they don’t link to any one else’s blogs or even mainstream media sites when they should.

An example of E&P’s misguided policy can be seen today,

“NEW YORK Jon Stewart hammered Jim Cramer and his network, CNBC, in their anticipated face-off on “The Daily Show,” repeatedly chastising the “Mad Money” host for putting entertainment above journalism.

To see full video, go to E&P blog, at:

http://www.eandppub.com/”

That’s right, E&P actually uses their feeds and main site to try and promote their own blog, but don’t even provide a hyperlink to that blog. Instead, they copy and paste a dead link into the middle of the article. This isn’t new, but I’m not sure someone with a brain has actually thought through what the E&P policy should be. Is this bad policy or just plain stupidity? For more, go read Windsor’s peice and then, if you’d like to keep up on the Stewart v. Cramer fight, I’ve included the actual video below… novel idea, I know.

The points that Stewart makes throughout this interview are unbelievably great and the best and most honest report of the market crash I have yet to see on TV.

EDIT: I have decided to replace the edited interview with the unedited version for both technical and editorial reasons.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3: