News sites have largely adapted the existing design genres of print newspapers and magazines to the smaller format of the Web. Virtually all of the design conventions used on the New York Times Web site derive from well-established print precedents, although ironically, the New York Times's louder, more colorful Web presence owes more to the exaggerated visual hierarchies of USA Today than to the Times's conservative print conventions.
Fortunately, aside from the newspapers themselves, there are excellent resources available for learning the conventions and terminology of journalistic graphic design. Tim Harrower's Newspaper Designer's Handbook and other similar books are filled with useful presentation devices that translate easily to a Web page and have the additional benefit of being familiar to the news audience.