fix journalism a conversation about journalism’s future

About a year ago, I and many others suggested making an iTunes for newspapers but we see now that that might not be such a great idea considering the music industry and a million other blog posts about paying for stories.

iTunes also would prohibit the type of content possible and revenue potential considering Apple would become a distributor and the interface would be locked into Apple’s design.

So without a whole lot of predictions and turning myself into a fool, I’m going to say the iPad represents another platform or perhaps a more flexible mobile platform for news content.

If news companies are able to create their own reading/viewing environments for the iPad, then I think that’s a good thing.

Will it save journalism? Pft. No. But it opens up to yet another market and business model/revenue potential.
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In response to the previous post, Brian Duggan, Donica Mensing and I began an interesting disucssion via email. The question: Is advertising capable of being journalism ever?”
Brian Duggan said:
Ads provide objective information, yes, but to what degree? Does that baked potato in your Locals BBQ ad always look picturesque for every customer?
Ask yourself this: how credible [...]

A lot of people in the hardcore journalism world don’t think advertising is journalism (it’s threatening) and many people don’t believe advertising should be in journalism schools. But I think advertising is journalism and belongs in J-schools.
Advertising can serve the same purposes and affect the same goals as journalism when done a certain way for [...]

I walked up to the imaginary doctor and interviewed him using my Evernote (btw, you need this if you’re a journalist, not just for iPhone) voice recorder. He told me Michael Jackson was in critical condition.

When I hit save on Evernote, it automatically uploaded the sound file to the web. Annie has access to my Evernote account and watched it load live, then saved it to her computer, briefly trimmed it down, uploaded it to SoundCloud.com (YouTube for audio) and Tweeted the sound clip embeded on the L.A. Times website with a nutgraf.

Total time for first breaking news report: 10 minutes

While I waited in the waiting room, the editor and I coordinated my and the L.A. Times tweets using a synced Tweetdeck (iPhone app + her desktop app). I tweeted extra details while the editor spread the word.

As people retweeted us, we retweeted them with #truth

People who lied (or abused the hash tag) were retweeted with #untruth so that people would ignore them and continue to retweet our reports.

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It irks me that our industry is currently having a debate about who the customer is; readers or advertisers.
The above Harvard Business blog talks about finding out how people read, something I’ve been whining about for a year now. A very anthropological, anti-focus group approach is what he suggests. I’d agree. Annie points out that that’s [...]

In imagination land, we’ll partner with Comma Coffee, a locally owned coffee shop in Carson City. We’ll go with the original idea, where Swift partners to put Nevada Appeal newspapers and a Nevada Appeal reporter in the coffee shop almost all day. We have Online Community Managers (OCMs), so let’s say it’s one of those people.

That reporter/OCM gathers news, talks to people, answers questions (even just common questions about town goings-ons), reports, moderates, etc. He/She is the community hub – the all-knowing journalist. But he/she is only the all-knowing journalist because of time spent with the community members. So really, the OCM is a facilitator between customers who buy coffee for breakfast and customers who buy at lunch.

Also, we buy one of those nice big flat screen TVs (about $1000 to $1600) and start selling advertisements on a rotating screen. As an incentive, it also includes specials in that coffee shop with nice food photography compliments of the ad staff. Nothing is better than a photo of a greasy croissant sandwich or steaming coffee when it comes to making point of purchase sales.

In addition to ads, let’s stick news headlines on that screen. Not unlike Las Vegas Sun’s billboards.

On top of that, if there’s breaking news using Twitter or Cover it Live (or other live tools) let’s put the Nevada Appeal’s Twitterfall on it too. People in the coffee shop could participate from their mobile phones or laptops and see it live.

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So let’s get this straight: Only teens don’t like frustrating, hard to use websites, only teens don’t like irrelevant, useless information, only teens don’t like liars and only teens want to use information they find for more than personal knowledge?

I don’t understand how the website suggestions are any different than how anyone at any age would like to read. The NAA and Northwestern did not identify how teenagers read, they identified a type of reader that happens to be slightly more common among young people.

In my research and personal usability testing, I’ve discovered two overarching type of readers: Surfers and Drillers. Underneath that, I’ve identified others. However, Innovation in Newspapers 2009 publication (PDF costs money) labeled them more clearly, so I will use theirs in the below descriptions.
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Journalists write stories. Most stories are intended to convey information. The strategic thinking that should be the next step — who needs this information, how might they act on it, how will they find it, how will they share it, how is it useful to them? — gets little attention in most newsrooms. [...]