Jim Iovino and NBC4 Give Washington, D.C. News a Facelift

FAIRFAX, VA -- Expecting a daily newspaper to deliver your news? How about those smiling talents on the morning news shows; waiting for them to give you world news and local reports? According to Jim Iovino, the online editor for News4 Washington, it’s not up to them anymore.

 Iovino has been an integral part of the team who has given the NBC4 website a complete overhaul.  Before the revamp of the NBC 4 website a visitor was greeted by the blinding smiles of the channel’s on-air talent.

Now, NBC4 is transformed into News4 Washington. The new website, www.nbcwashington.com, is not your typical local news website. Ioveno says that he and other editors determine what stories people will want to read, but the front page of the site will be a bit of local and less national.

Iovino described the new Washington site as having stories that possess more “snarkiness.” Just how snarky? The story about Michael Phelps and his alleged bong picture was on the News4 front page with the headline: “Bong Hit: Eight Bagged in Phelp’s Party Probe.”

"We didn’t have the ‘just your straight news’ mentality, something like ‘The Daily Show’ in that nature. Some informative text but more smart ass," said Iovino in regards to the level of “snarkiness” on nbcwashington.com.

Atop the banner of the News4 site, text reads “Locals Only.” Iovino and his team wanted to give the website a more local and updated feel. 

Sampling from the popularity of Apple’s cascading album cover feature on iTunes, the News4 site has a visually stimulating way to deliver its stories.

Similar to USA Today’s theme of certain colors applying to certain sections of the paper, News4 has used colors from the NBC peacock logo to associate with different navigation of the site.

To provide a more local beat for the website, Iovino said that they have integrated a “local hot spot” feature on their website.

Local hot spots work displaying an interactive map displaying a radius of where published stories take place. The idea came from the geo-tagging aspect of Flickr, stories from OutsideIn.com, and a news feed from EveryBlock.com

 “Hot Spots brings all kinds of databases into one parent website to find crime reports in specific zip code and compile them into an ‘actual usable form’ and helps find other services and businesses,” said Iovino, “And photos, from Flickr, if you geo-tag it then you can trace them back to your neighborhood.”

Hot Spots includes a even more local level than sites like OutsideIn.com because it regularly uses local blogs.  On the Hot Spot map, stories written by News4 appear in light orange. Similar stories about the same topic written by local bloggers appear on the map in dark orange.

"We try to find blogs that are reputable, not just any blog we find out there. There has to be a vetting process to credibility,” said Iovino when asked about unofficial sources.

But, making Washington, D.C. area news local is no easy task.

“Our news is more national than local, so we have the challenge of bringing things back to us, that’s why we have ‘Locals Only’ on our site,” says Iovino.