Is It Worthwhile to Write News Items for Triond?

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Is It Worthwhile to Write News Items for Triond?

Posted on September 30th, 2009 in Online Writing by Lucas Dié

After reading the comments on my news article on Roman Polanski, I asked myself if it is worthwhile writing news items for Triond at all. As I knew the reaction of ‘that is old news’ from myself reading other writers’ news articles, I found it necessary to raise the question for all to consider.

I wrote an article called Roman Polanski Arrested in Switzerland which was published by Triond on Newsflavor. In her comment, Lady Syxess pointed out that the article contained the same information as numerous others on the net and did not contain enough personal opinion.

Lady Syxess was absolutely right in her assessment for several reasons: By the time the article was published, it was definitely no news anymore. Being a no news item, it should have been written as an opinionated assessment. In its present state, it definitely looked like a copy write of everything else written on the net, which is a fact that writers have to put up with when dealing with news: There are only so many things you can say about a limited subject.

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But let’s get back to my question in the title. Leading up to that question, have a look at the timeline of publication as I set it out below. I am sure; many of you will recognise this timeline from personal experience.

I wrote the article an hour after the press conference of Swiss Justice Minister Eveyne Widmer-Schlumpf. In my opinion, that was the right moment to write a news article without expounding a major opinion. That the article was then only published a day later didn’t help it being very much of a news item. And I suppose that has been happening to all those writers where I thought that they were writing up no news, really. But do we really expect Triond to provide us the service of a major news agency like Reuters?

On the other hand, I wrote an opinionated article Why Roman Polanski Will Face Months in Goal in Switzerland the day my news article was published. This article expounded my view on the legal situation. Ironically, that article went online within the hour, beating the Swiss Ministry of Justice by an hour to them publishing their legal assessment. Their assessment just happened to coincide with my opinion.

Under such circumstances, is it worthwhile publishing news items? I had written the news while only headlines and no details were available in English, and nobody had yet bothered to translate the statement from the Swiss Minister of Justice. Being told later that the article is a no news item, which thanks to Triond’s publishing policy it actually wasn’t, is not the thing you are looking for as a writer.

Therefore, the question goes out to all Triond writers: Is it worthwhile to write news items for Triond? Or should all of us limit our writing to opinion pieces?

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Tags: Arts, comments, news, newsflavor, publication, Roman Polanski, Switzerland, triond, Writers, Writing

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6 Responses to “Is It Worthwhile to Write News Items for Triond?”

Patrick Bernauw
September 30th, 2009 at 7:05 am

Good question. Chris Jordan had some breaking news on Banksy, some time ago… and it also took two days to get published (being “old news” by then). Maybe we shouldn’t use Triond for news articles, but sites such as Associated Content or the HubPages, where you entirely controls the moment of publication (it is done when you hit the publish button).
Ursula Banteux
September 30th, 2009 at 7:25 am

I personally don’t think it’s worthwhile to write news articles for Triond. Readers looking for the news will be able to find it just about anywhere else from a source they may find more reliable. I definitely don’t look for news on Triond, but I do look for commentary. I’ve also been attempting to dabble in some commentary myself, as you’ve noticed.
martie
September 30th, 2009 at 10:41 am

I think you have to pick the news item. If the news is something worth reading, but isn’t common news. I think, if the news is something major papers will cover on the front pages, we are always going to be a day late or a dollar short.
sophiemarie
October 5th, 2009 at 3:38 am

Hi,
I like reading news articles from Triond writers because even if they don’t do it purposely, they often put their opinions and ideas in it which are often interesting.
Also, even if the article is not a real news anymore, generally there are comments and those make the topic interesting as well because it allows us to read different opinions from people all over the world.
News on the net do that too but I like when I can read opinions here from people I know a bit and whose articles or opinions I can then read further by clicking on their name.
Personally, I like having news articles here at Triond and if they don’t interest me becuase it’s really really old news, I simply skip
Sophie
CaSundara
October 5th, 2009 at 4:57 am

I’ve been wondering the same thing after waiting two days for my sex slaves in France article to finally be published. I think you’re right, opinions will work better, but I believe they should have a deadline on publishing news-related items – if for no other reason than to enhance the reputation of the site they’re publishing us on. Who’s going to keep coming back to a site displaying old news? Yes, opinions are best, and controversial ones too, IMO. I tested my theory on a popular forum I belong to by posting controversial subjects with ambiguous titles. Because many people are half-witted or unable to read (or think they are so clever they don’t need to read the article prior to responding) they were popular topics with lots of hysterical comments – I was giggling for hours. You do need a think skin, though… I wasn’t exactly popular after that. LOL
JamieJCO
October 5th, 2009 at 3:35 pm

I, personally, don’t think that it is worth writing news articles. Why would anyone look for articles on Newsflavour when they have TV Networks and web giants providing up-to-the-minute information?

The only way it will ever be worthwhile is if we give our own opinions, at which point it isn’t really reporting news at all anymore.