News-Record.com

Oh, how far our industry still has to go:

Yesterday I wrote about the N&O picking up on the complaints about press coverage that Gov. Mike Easley made to our Raleigh reporter, Mark Binker. The governor's comments came in a wide-ranging interview, which Mark spliced and diced into topic areas for listeners' convenience. Do I need to mention that we're talking about the audio recording, not the written word?

Both the N&O and the Charlotte Observer wrote about it yesterday, without linking. The N&O editorialized about it today, without linking. Editor & Publisher wrote about the dust-up, too, without linking. And several North Carolina newspapers carried the AP story, without links, although the wire service offered it.

Sure, we want the traffic. But that's small change compared with the convenience, to say nothing of the credibility, that the news organizations could have provided visitors. Making it easy to hear precisely what the governor said, listening to his tone and inflections, is a key benefit to online news. It's an opportunity that we must embrace every chance we get.

To his credit, Jack Betts, an editorial writer at the Charlotte Observer, links to it from his blog.

Update: Scott Karp, CEO of Publish 2, twitters: "Failure to link to original sources should be seen as failure of practice of journalism generally, not just online."

Update II: Two responses from the N&O: Danny Barkin points out a link in the Under the Dome blog. Steve Riley comments that they'll add links to tomorrow's story.