Blog

Leaving the New Zealand Herald

Today marks a turning point for me as I leave nzherald.co.nz after almost seven years as editor. It’s been a great job, but it has really cut into my blogging time. 😉

Starting now, I’ll be updating this site much more frequently, including some of the online journalism issues that I’ve previously covered as part of my “official blog” at nzherald.

That blog is now closed [ but the archives remain at nzherald.co.nz/editor ] and I’ve taken the liberty of cross-posting the final entry below:

It’s my final day at nzherald and I’d like to say good bye.
 
There have been a lot of changes in online publishing and at nzherald since I joined the fledgling operation at the beginning of 2000.
 
Yet in many ways that early website offered a glimpse of what the web would become – once the business models had been sorted out.
 
The early Herald Online sought to bring readers into the news conversation, through daily polls and discussion boards, much like the current trend towards “social media” and “user-generated content”.
 
And the site showed that the Herald could compete with radio and television to be among the first with the news, for example during our coverage of the Fiji coup, the 2000 America’s Cup and Sept 11.
 
There was so much optimism in those dot-com bubble days that our business cards carried the slogan “Wilson & Horton Interactive – leaders of the webolution”. As corny as that may sound, it does evoke the fun and creativity that were part of working in a web start-up.

Flashback 2000: Leaders of the Webolution
 
Along the road there have been enormous changes, including retrenchment during the dot-com meltdown of 2000-2001 when many of our digital pioneers lost their jobs. But the website is now stronger and more effective than ever. Our team has grown substantially and the site is updated every few minutes. We offer audio and video when they help to explain a story. There are email alerts and RSS feeds on 2000 subjects.
 
Shortly after I started here, a very excited system administrator sent a note to the rest of us, announcing the nzherald stats for February 2000: over half a million users and almost two million page impressions for the month!
 
Six and half years later, the figures for September 2006 were three times higher for users (at more than 1.6 million per month), and 14 times higher for page impressions (at more than 27 million). On a typical day, more than 130,000 people stop by the site at least once.
 
The numbers are wonderful and we’re really proud of them. They are testimony to the dedication of a magnificent online team, whom I am going to miss very much, and the support of our talented colleagues throughout the Herald.
 
But more than anything else, the success of nzherald reflects the suppport of “the people formerly known as the audience” (a phrase coined by Jay Rosen). The feedback and the opinions (many of which have appeared in our Readers’ Views section) have helped us create the country’s leading online news service and a place where the community meets to share information, expertise and opinion.
 
Long may it continue.