In journalism, competition can be a good thing. It encourages better reporting, wider coverage and, at the end of the day, an improved news experience for the reading public.

So it is fortunate that for perhaps the first time in its 129-year history, The Daily Northwestern has a suitable competitor: North by Northwestern, whose success marks the first time a daily campus publication has truly challenged The Daily.

Over the past few months, NBN’s reporting and campus coverage have become increasingly impressive. And though its editorial quality may not always match The Daily’s, NBN has begun to carve out a real journalistic presence on campus, exploring territory that was once exclusively The Daily’s.

Part of what makes NBN so appealing is its exceptional self-managed Web site. It is peppered with multimedia features and blogs, taking full advantage of the medium. The Daily’s Web site, on the other hand, falls far short of NBN’s. Maintained using the College Media Network’s abominable College Publisher program, The Daily’s site feels bulky and outdated despite recent redesigns and an increased focus on web content from new Editor in chief and Medill junior Emily Glazer. Perhaps as a result, NBN averages about 2,000 more unique visitors a day than dailynorthwestern.com, according to data provided by both publications.

Students Publishing Co. board member and Medill Prof. Charles Whitaker said The Daily is likely to stay with the free College Publisher service for the time being, but he recognizes something needs to be done about the Web site. “This is imperative to our future,” he said, “and we can’t just wait and hope for College Publisher to improve.”

So, how can The Daily keep up in an era where Web sites have become the resource of choice? To start, it has to do a better job of encouraging its staff to think about potential web content while reporting. This latest editorial board has done a solid job of starting to prioritize the web, appointing Daily veteran and Medill sophomore Trevor Seela as multimedia producer and giving him deputies on the campus and sports desks that work exclusively on web projects.

Unfortunately, this has not yet led to many quality video projects on the site. By my count, The Daily has produced eight videos so far this quarter. Four of these – brief pitches from Evanston’s mayoral candidates – were files so large they took nearly three minutes to load before playing, so to the average reader it looked like they did not work. “I learned what I did wrong with that piece,” said Seela, a former NBN assistant multimedia editor, who added that these first two weeks have been a learning experience for him.

Another election-related post, this one about poor voter turnout at on-campus polling sites, had shoddy audio quality that alternated between being too soft and too loud. Seela said he was unaware of the audio issues prior to my bringing them to his attention as he had not watched the full video prior to posting it.

Clearly, there is room for improvement. “I need to work a lot harder at organizing and communicating with my staff,” Seela said.The Daily has had some multimedia successes. It has effectively used flash slideshows for a number of stories this quarter, displaying them prominently on dailynorthwestern.com. And its sports blog is updated regularly, though it is buried in the bottom right corner of the site and is headlined “Cats’ Corner: NU basketball” despite featuring coverage from a multitude of sports teams.

As far as NBN goes, Daily online managing editor and Medill junior Elise Foley said “We realize we’re not going to compete online with North by Northwestern yet.” And while it’s not The Daily’s modus operandi to be like NBN, it needs to continue its Web site-improving efforts. Hopefully, The Daily and NBN will keep pushing each other to new journalistic heights, and their readers will be the better for it.

Medill senior Ben Larrison can be reached at [email protected].

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