News

The locks are off. The Globe Docs team is regularly producing new video. Commenters are alive, well and eager for less oversight and more control of their online dialogues.

So, where is globeandmail.com headed?

What features are being added to The Globe's website?

What can we expect now that the columnists are all free?

Globeandmail.com editor Angus Frame was online Tuesday to tackle those questions and answer other queries. Your questions and Mr. Frame's answers appear at the bottom of this page.

Unlike the traditional branches of the media, the Web offers a tremendous forum for real dialogue between readers and the journalists who gather, edit and distribute news and commentary.

We at globeandmail.com are strongly committed to the widest possible conversations with our readers through live discussions such as this instalment of our monthly "Ask the Editor" series, comments on this articles, blogs and other features.

Mr. Frame has been with The Globe and Mail since 1996 in various capacities in the news and Report on Business sections. He moved to globeandmail.com in 2000 as Deputy Editor in charge of business coverage and became the site's editor on Sept. 10, 2001.

He has an honours BA in Political Science from McMaster University and a Journalism degree from Ryerson University. He lives in Toronto's High Park neighbourhood with his wife, two daughters and dog.

The discussion will begin Tuesday at 3 p.m. ET. Send your questions now and join us Tuesday to read Mr. Frame's replies.

Editor's Note: globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. HTML is not allowed. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on Globe journalists or other participants in these discussions, that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements. Preference will be given to readers who submit questions/comments using their full name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.

Christine Diemert, globeandmail.com: Hello Angus, thanks for coming online today. Before we start with the reader questions, I'd like to ask you to describe some of the changes to the website.

Angus Frame: Hi Chris: A pleasure to be here, it's always enjoyable to spend some time chatting with our readers. The biggest recent change on the site involves the removal of the locks from columnists, editorials and some other features. This is a pretty exciting development as it makes a lot of The Globe's best-known writers are now available to all of our online readership. We've also continued to explore the storytelling capabilites of the Internet -- our recent series Senior High is a good example of how we are learning to blend text, video, interactives and reader feedback to create rich digital experiences.

Heidi Hartmann from Burlington Canada writes: I like the new video features and documentaries. Keep it up. My question today is more about articles. For the most part, your online articles are identical to the print versions - long and lengthy and not so easy to read online quickly. Is the globeandmail.com considering rewriting articles to better suit online reading? Perhaps making articles more interactive (i.e. offering greater value than what the traditional printed version offers)?

Angus Frame: Hi Heidi. An interesting question, we spend a lot of time talking about articles and how to present stories on the site. We do not have any plans to truncate articles from the print edition or to in any way shorten the stories. I'm not convinced that length is really the issue -- there is some interesting research that suggests that people reading online are actually able to focus on the story more successfully and are more likely to read to the end of an article that they find on the Internet.

I do agree that there is a real need and a real opportunity to enrich the storytelling experience online and that the article page is the cornerstone of this work. Most of our online readers will be familiar with our habit of adding related videos, related atricles and so on to most of our breaking news stories. And you may have caught some of our new work with interactive timelines over the weekend in the Report on Business story examining the food crisis and also in the John Ibbitson story on the issues with Hilary Clinton's campaign for the White House. And of course, we allow readers to interact with almost every story by offering the comment function as often as possible.

All of these elements -- videos, interactive timelines, related articles and comments -- add to the interactivity of our stories and offer readers, I hope, a rich experience with every story we publish.

K S from Toronto Canada writes: The removal of the locks was a pleasant surprise which I first read about in an article on your AvantGo channel. Do you have any plans for changes to this service or to make more content available for wireless/handheld devices? Is the high cost of wireless data for users a barrier to you in making more use of this platform?

Hello K S. Like most digital publishers, we are anxious to offer a compelling mobile product and are experimenting in the space but at this point have not hit on the perfect approach. In January we relaunched our mobile site to make it easier to navigate and quicker to load and this was generally well received. But I think you are right about the high cost of data slowing down the development of the mobile space in this country. It'd be nice to see things get a bit more affordable and a bit more accessible…

Coyote from Canada writes: Congratulations Mr. Angus Frame! Job well done! Unlocking, that is. And about time. Old media is obsolete: I have been blogging that fact for several years now. The Globe and Mail was in danger of slipping into obsolescence as on-line media exploded. And I love your paper, subscribing to the Friday/Saturday option. I also subscribe to my local daily which also expels a dinosaur-like death-rattle. No one under 50 reads a newspaper anymore and counting on Baby Boomers is the sure way to extinction.

One more point. Globe and Mail reporters have been exploring the shift from paid media stars to FREE bloggers and other free media. You need to also adjust to this paradigm, and this will be the hardest for newspaper people to do. It seems that in the newspaper business there is a kind of chauvinism where non-professionals are scorned as less valuable than paid staff.

You need to recognize the value of the input of your readers, not only to the newspaper business, but to democracy and civic participation. A revolution is brewing and will the Globe and Mail be Victim or Champion? (line break signals were used to create paragraphs in this post)

Angus Frame: Hi Coyote: Where to start. First, I'm glad the unlocking is being well received. It's an exciting step for us. And I'm glad you love The Globe -- I'm a bit of a fan myself. In terms of old media becoming obsolete, I think the rapid changes of the digital era are both an unprecedented challenge for traditional media outlets (some of your blogging brethern call us MSM -- mainstream media) and an unprecedented opportunity to adapt and tell stories in previously undreamed of ways. I like to think that we're adapting well at The Globe, both from a journalistic perspective and from a business perspective. For the record, I am well under the age of 50 and I continue to read multiple newspapers every day.

Moving on to our attitude toward "professionals" compared with the informed citizens who make up our readership, I think you may want to look at our site a little more closely. Every month we publish more than 100,000 reader comments. If you add up the words you'd discover that online we publish more from our readers than we do from our stable of professionals. We also publish photos from our readers and allow our readers to lead the discussion in online chats like this one. We allow readers to set the news lineup through their recommendations, their clicks and their email decisions -- all of this can be found displayed on our Home Page and on our Most Popular hub. We know the paradigm is shifting, and we are shifting with it.

Are there technical imperfections in our comment software? Yes. Are we working to fix them? Absolutely. And are we doing a better job than our competitors? I'll let you decide…

Jeff Percy from Summerville Centre, NS Canada writes: I've recently read reader comments inferring that the G&M will not allow or post comments on stories about Israel and /or the Middle East. Does the G&M have such a policy and if so, why? Thank you.

David Guy from Canada writes: Hi Angus, I've always been curious what your policy is on allowing reader's comments with some stories and not on others. Do you think it ever reflects any poltical bias, as some readers have suggested in the past? Thanks

Kyle Olsen from Calgary Canada writes: Would it be possible to show comments left on articles based on quality as voted by users, rather than mere speed. The comments seems to have declined in quality, and a rather a source of humour than even somewhat intelligent discussion. Maybe requiring real names be listed would slow down the vitriol that appears on some articles and give commentators a pause for thought? In any case, good job on following the New York Times - only a couple years late to the party?

Patrick Bramwell from Calgary Canada writes: Comments, where allowed, on news stories often range from the hysterical through the viciously partisan to the just plain wrong. Is there truly any moderation going on? If so, should there be more?

Angus Frame: Hi All -- I'll try to get to all of these as best I can. We do not have a policy frobidding comments on stories about the Middle East and Israel. Unfortunately, there are a minority of posters in our community who continually violate our stated polices for commenting when it comes to Middle Eastern issues, so we have been forced to either fully moderate comments on the Middle East or close them. This is very unfortunate and I really hope that soon we'll be able to change our approach. In the meantime, I encourage you to come back to the site tomorrow when Comment section editor and Middle East expert (my description, not his) Patrick Martin will be fielding reader questions.

In general our policy is to allow comments on articles whenever we can responsibly do so. This means stories in open court are not open, stories about issues that have unfortunately attracted too many comment violators are closed and stories, such as obits, are often closed if from an editorial perspective we feel the comment thread would be inappropriate. There is no political bias, though readers on the left and right of the political spectrum would likely argue otherwise.

I like the idea of adding features that allow the strongest comments to rise to the top … stay tuned.

B Reynolds from Kingston Canada writes: Hi Angus -I'm curious what you think will be the future for The Globe's print edition, since the Internet makes information immediately available and updateable, for no more than the cost of a high-speed Internet connection. Can newspapers really expect people to keep paying for print versions, when their content is (arguably) everywhere else on-line before the papers even hit the streets?

Angus Frame: B. Reynolds: I think the future of The Globe is strong so long as we continue to produce high-quality journalism that is distributed to our readers in the format they want. So, if someday in the future our readers turn their backs on the web The Globe will survive by adapting and delivering the news through another channel. If readers turn their backs on print, The Globe will survive by adapting and serving the news through another channel.

For me, The Globe and Mail is not about paper or computer screens. It is about great journalism and an intelligent and engaged readership. So while the means for delivering the journalism may evolve the strength of the journalism and the quality of the readership is what will carry us into the future.

And, just for the record, I don't think the print edition is going away anytime soon. It's a great way to get the daily news and commentary and for many it is still the most popular format.

Skooter Man from Toronto Canada writes: What other news web sites do you hold up as benchmarks in this space?

Angus Frame: To Skooter Man: Currently, I consider The Guardian to be among the leaders in this space and I have been a fan of the BBC for a long time. In the U.S. I enjoy the tried and true New York Times and have been impressed by some of the innovations over at CBSnews.com. Here in Canada, I really like the work they're doing at globeandmail.com….

Peter Konieczny from Ajax, Ontario Canada writes: I was wondering what your future plans will be in regards to your online bloggers? I greatly enjoy the postings by Adam Radwanski, Matthew Ingram and others, and I can see that you can even expand further your numbers in this area, or even add video blogs, etc. Do you foresee that your bloggers/online commentators will become a much bigger section in the future, or stay around the same number you have now?

Angus Frame: And to Peter Konieczny: I expect we'll expand our blogging family. Adam and Mathew are great and their views really add something extra to the site. Photo blogs and video blogs are certainly in the near future for us…

Kevin Isicovit from Edmonton Canada writes: Mr. Frame, I noticed a few months ago that the Globe had changed the tone of its headlines for many online articles, to the kind of headline that read more like a teaser than a good indicator of the article's content. My guess is that this generates much more advertising revenue for the Globe (a good thing), as in the case of a tech blog entry that remains in the top 10 viewed articles, weekend after weekend, only, I assume, because the headline reads 'Automatic Hotmail sign-in problems.' Was this a deliberate shift by the Globe staff? How do other factors play into the daily layout of the paper, beyond simply splitting an article into multiple pages of web content?

Angus Frame: Hi Kevin. We spend a fair bit of time discussing online headlines and trying to figure out what makes for a good web headline compared with a good print edition headline. Generally, we strive for a headline that can, on its own, sell a story by giving readers a good sense of what the article inside will say. In terms of some of the more unexpected items that linger in our top 10 lists, that often has more to do with other sites linking to us than it does with our clever ability to write great display copy.

Christine Diemert: Thanks for joining us today Angus. Before we close the discussion, is there anything you'd like to add? What can we look forward to on globeandmail.com?

Angus Frame: Thanks everyone for your questions, it's been a fun hour. In terms of the future, I'll be vague but you can look forward to even more innovation with video, expanded community features and lots more of the great journalism that people have come to expect from The Globe and Mail and globeandmail.com. But it's not just up to us, you readers have a say too. So please, send me an email -- aframe@globeandmail.com -- if there is anything you'd like to see on the site in the coming days. I may not answer all the emails, but I assure you they will be read and all suggestions considered.