Links

Do NOT link to a blank page!

Adding links in your story
Adding links enhances and broadens the information you’re giving your readers. Letting readers find information easily on their own not only lets them make their own judgments but also lets them realize you’re not trying to push them one way or another.

• Make sure your links are more than a reference to a source. Links should add information to the story and be relevant. According to Amy Gahran, “A news organization that fails to provide direct links to relevant sources and resources looks pretty backward, clueless, and possibly even useless in an online context.”

• Link to credible traditional sites, such U.S. census data sites, state and local government sites, corporate home pages, legitimate charities and mainstream media.

• Links to primary documents are good. So are links to blogs, YouTube video or whatever other sources illustrate a conflict. Links to video of ads from the Vietnam Veterans for Truth, for example, along with links to blogs dissecting and contradicting the ads, would be appropriate in a story about hardball politics.

• Instead of a direct link, you could use a footnote or an arrow, as Wikipedia does when it links to an external site.

• Is a direct link a service to the readers? Or should you include the link’s URL as a text entry but not make it a live link? Readers who want to pursue this link will have to copy and paste it in a browser. Or is this like saying the following?

ATTN: All pilots are forbidden from flying over the nude sun-bathing colony located at the following co-ordinates. (Source: Reader’s Digest years ago in the Humor in Military section)

Where to place links
• In-line links can be distracting (although these are the norm in most
blogs). Some sites use these for paid advertising, which discourages clicking.

• Bottom-of-the-story links: How many readers ever reach the end? Is this like having no links at all?

• Sidebar links: Do these links to outside sources give credibility? Perhaps a sidebar high up on the page would increase readers’ trust
in the content. Sidebar and bottom-of-the-story links can be annotated so the user has a clear idea what they’ll lead to.

Thoughts from Paul Brannan, Deputy Editor, BBC News Interactive
Here at the BBC, we’ve had some difficult calls on external links because they are seen as partial and judgemental. Why, for example, would we link to the website of Holocaust denier David Irving and not to that of the far-right British National Party?

Our editorial guidelines set out some broad principles: “The BBC should be seen to be impartial. BBC sites covering controversial subjects may offer links to external sites which, taken together, represent a reasonable range of views about the subject. We should ensure that when we link to third party sites that we take into account any concerns about potential breaches of the law e.g. defamation or incitement to racial hatred, or the BBC guidelines on harm and offence.”

But what’s reasonable? And what do the harm and offence guidelines have to say?

They state: “The BBC aims to reflect the world as it is, including all aspects of the human experience and the realities of the natural world. In doing so, we balance our right to broadcast and publish innovative and challenging content appropriate to each of our services with our responsibility to protect the vulnerable.

“When we broadcast or publish challenging material which risks offending some of our audience we must always be able to demonstrate a clear editorial purpose. Such material may include, but is not limited to, offensive language, humiliation, sexual violence and discriminatory treatment. We must be sensitive to audience expectations, particularly in relation to the protection of children, as well as clearly signposting the material.

So, in linking to the BNP would we be driving traffic to the party’s “ignorant, hateful and cowardly” content, as one complainant insisted?

The disclaimer that “the BBC is not responsible for external sites” cut little ice. “I am not asking the BBC to take responsibility for the racist content of this particular website, but you must take responsibility for linking to this vile content.”

The easy thing to do would be to adopt an all-or-nothing policy. After all, if people really wanted to find their way to this kind of material then Google is only a click away. Why help the process? A blanket ban would relieve us of the Wisdom of Solomon judgement calls.

So, for that matter, would a policy of linking to anything and everything and that would certainly chime with web audiences who see editorialising as censorship.

In reality we make decisions on which sites to link to on a case-by-case
basis and we consider them carefully, in relation to the news agenda and the context around each story.

As far as the BNP is concerned we have not in general linked to their
site but, in the interests of impartiality, we have done so during
election periods.

Sure, we drive traffic to their site, but click-throughs don’t necessarily convert to support for the party. In fact, the opposite may be true.

As for David Irving’s site we felt it was editorially justified to
include a link. Whilst we recognised his views would be repugnant to many people we felt the views he expressed gave an additional insight into the story and the background to his trial. We also linked to sites providing more mainstream perspectives, such as the Holocaust Educational Trust.

To link or not to link—That is the question
There are two schools of thought about linking to external pages. According to Dr. Leslie-Jean Thornton, a long-time newspaper reporter and editor and now a journalism professor at Arizona State University, some people prefer lots of external links so they can easily access additional information. Other people, however, fear that links will take readers away from their site (and advertising) to another site.

Unless skillfully done, links can also interrupt the reader’s train of thought. In addition, some readers who click on an external link may assume your publication endorses the Web site you sent them to. Let’s say you wrote a story about the proliferation of white supremacy Web sites. Are you doing readers a service by linking to those sites, or are you helping spread their hate messages?

If you link to external sites, Thornton recommended:

• Avoid careless links. If you send readers to sites that aren’t what you
promised, they’ll quickly become frustrated or disillusioned with your site.

• Don’t provide too many links. They can confuse readers and make a
page look cluttered.

• Write link text that makes sense. If you click on a button that says
JOBS, you expect to go to a page of job listings. But is it clear where
a link that says JOB-O-RAMA would take you ?

• Use active verbs that involve the user. Instead of saying “More about
the new law,” use “Read more about the new law.”

Story summaries—A type of link
These short descriptions on the home page are usually topped by a headline and followed by 20 to 40 words describing the story readers will see if they click on the summary. Thornton describes two approaches to story summaries:

• Repeat the first paragraph or two of the story itself. This works for straight news stories with summary leads but not for stories that begin with anecdotes or vignettes. Be careful: Anecdotal leads can have beginnings that looks like hard news but aren’t; the story could easily be misidentified or misclassified. If you add The Associated Press suggested headline or the headline from the print edition, make sure it is accurate—factually and in tone—especially when a story is advancing quickly and the headline doesn’t get updated to reflect the latest information.

• Write a carefully crafted summary. Few news sites have the time and resources for this, but it’s a the smart thing to do for feature or news stories with unconventional leads. Repeat most of the facts from the nut graph or else preserve enough of the opening scene to hook readers.

Good story summaries do several things:

• Encourage readers to click so they can read the full story.

• Complement rather than repeat the headline.

• Explain unfamiliar terms.

• Preserve the flavor of the story and the writer’s voice.

Since story summaries appear on the home page, edit them carefully for spelling, grammar, punctuation and AP style. Also check the juxtaposition with ads and art for any unintended connections or faux pas.

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