Chasing stories.

• Position: UPFRONT - Www.BusinessNC.com - Newspaper Web sites - Viewpoint essay

My insomnia continues. The Boss wrote about it 16 months ago in this space and how it played into a change in our Web site--www.BusinessNC.com. That's when I started posting The Daily Digest, a roundup of links to the top business and politics newspaper articles across the state. One thing I've learned since: Negotiating newspaper Web sites is hard work, whether you're poring through them on deadline at 5 a.m. or browsing casually during the day. But that's what creates value in what I do.

Our G.D. Gearino (Fine Print, August) says newspapers are in trouble because the Internet allows anyone with a computer and the desire to do so to post news and opinion. An added benefit is that most of those amateurs make it pretty easy to find what they want you to read. Contrast that with some newspaper Web sites. It's easy enough to find information about sports, traffic or entertainment. Articles of substance, not so much.

I spent more than 20 years in newsrooms around the state before coming to BNC eight years ago, and I still love newspapers and want them to succeed. The Boss periodically has to remind me not to let old newspaper ways slip into my work. I also understand the inherent difficulty of creating newspaper Web sites. I helped design two in the late 1990s and, of course, have a role with the BNC site. The sites have to be more than a regurgitation of the print product, and they must have a distinctive look. It's a hard job, and I'm not sure I passed my own tests.

But too often, it seems, form--not function--has guided development of newspaper sites. And evolution is pushing them farther down that winding road. Among the papers that have changed their Web sites in the past year are the News & Record in Greensboro, the Star-News in Wilmington, the Winston-Salem Journal and The Charlotte Observer. They all look great. But behind the pretty colors, the navigation is...