When configuring your web content management system (CMS) it’s important to pay attention to the little details, let you end up with something like this article from the ABC News web site.
The byline says the article was posted 7 minutes ago and updated 8 minutes ago, which is logically absurd.
I saw similar inconsistencies on other ‘breaking news’ articles at the same web site. Articles in the ‘breaking news’ category can be updated several times in a single day, or even within an hour or two of first being published.
The timestamp is added to such stories so that readers know how fresh that breaking news really is. In contrast to a site that’s updated only once or twice a day, you are more likely to trust — and return to — a news web site that seems to be abreast of current events.
A well-built content management system should be able to automatically insert the timestamps and check that they are consistent. It’s worth making certain that your CMS is configured correctly to enable this.
