What's on YOUR Website? .....

One of the advantages reporting news on the internet has, as opposed to reporting that news on other media, is the degree of complementary, interactive features you can add to the story.

I came across a good example of this - or, actually, the lack of it - while perusing this story on the KOSA-TV website. It told of a Midland County woman who learned that she was no longer registered to vote, in spite of her past active status and record of voting in previous elections.

As a news consumer, one of my first reactions was something like, "wow, I wonder if I've been dropped from the voter rolls?" There is a place on Midland County's website where you can check your status - along with your polling location, and so on - and a link to that page would have been a perfect complement to the text, photo and video that accompanied CBS7's story.

But it's not there. I know that it could be there, because I worked on their website in late 2007/early 2008, and I know what it's capable of. The same with the people who worked on the website while I was there, who were first-rate. And I don't mean to single-out one news department's website ... all the local sites slip-up and miss details such as this at one time or another.

But it does provide a good example of how writing a web script can differ from writing a print, radio or television script ... and an example of how the internet can offer something that other media cannot.