Jack Shafer’s column on the “special kind of crap that (newspaper reporters) can write up on Friday and bank for publication on Monday” reminds me of how poorly most papers handle their print stories on the web on weekends. Newspaper folks are finally realizing that the web is not merely another place to dump all our print content, but that’s not to say we shouldn’t still get the best possible mileage out of all those old-fashioned words and non-moving pictures. Shafer writes:

“Monday crap stories appeal to journalists not just because they can be freeze-dried for later consumption, but because the competition isn’t likely to waste good Saturday or Sunday ink on a crap story when they have so much Monday acreage to fill. “

That Sunday ink might be the most valuable of the week, but what about the Sunday 1s and 0s? Sunday print circulation is typically, what, 25 to 50 percent higher than weekday circulation? But I’m guessing that Sunday traffic on your average newspaper.com is only 50 to 75 percent what it is on weekdays.

Forget for a moment what that says about our ability to capture our audience during their free time. Instead, just ask yourself this question: Why the hell do we still put all our best stories and features on the web on the day when the fewest eyeballs are focused on our web sites? More importantly, why do we then replace all that great Sunday journalism, which we’ve worked all week to produce, with what Shafer calls “Monday crap” on the day our readers head back to their offices, fire up their computers, and check out our site for the first time since Friday afternoon?

Simple solution: Don’t let “Monday crap” bump your Sunday best from the front page of your web site just because you flipped a page on your calendar. Leave it up there as long as it’s drawing traffic. Sure, we have to offer continuously updated news, but, much more importantly, we have to be continuously interesting.