fix journalism a conversation about journalism’s future

Author: Michael Higdon | 10.01.2008

The Nevada Sagebrush Web site has newly added forums that aren’t very active while the comments are very active. I see two variables that might explain this (well really three).

One is time, I’m just impatient and forums need more time to explode.

Two is promotion. We post starter content on them and try to get people going but if no one knows they exist than what the difference?

If a journalists posts content on a forum and there’s no one there to read it, did the journalist really post?

The third variable is most interesting to me.

Imagine this is Publics forming and reforming, now imagine that happening ten times the speed in a university. (Interestingly this also illustrates the Internet pretty well)

That’s what’s wrong.

To be specific, forums rely on cohesive groups of people to carry on conversations about particular topics. This works particularly well with cities because people have routines, so neighborhoods, politics, infrastructure, sports teams, personal interests, entertainment, etc. all affect them on a regular basis. A forum makes sense because it’s a place to cohesively discuss those topics with other people who are affected and to – if you want – do something about it.

A good forum will help journalists find trends among readers and assign typologies to people. You can produce better content for those people and talk to them instead of at them. The whole premise of community/niche journalism can be realized via active forums.

In school, those routines aren’t there. Sports and class are the only constant and not even really those. Your opinions change because your teacher might say something new one day your major might change next year, your friends change, you have no stable job or home (I’ve lived in four places in four years), you might not even be from that city or state. Where’s the relationship, where’s the connection? Is there one? Especially in a commuter campus where people aren’t interested in campus news for more than 15 minutes a day or even a week.

Students also consume less news via all sources because the unusual reading schedules, homework, classes and everything else.

If the budget crisis only affects you for a semester or for 3 hours a day, you’re less likely to want to do discuss it or even recognize the effects.

Sports are stable but players don’t have 3-year contracts, they have semester-to-semester contracts so long as their GPAs are good so you can’t even hold onto them.

But comments are a blast because a user can attach himself to the news for those 3 minutes, care, have an opinion and move on. You are, for those moments, informed and capable of carrying on a conversation. You can follow a story and you can even protect the newspaper against newbies or people who haven’t followed the whole story (like many of our commentors do).

There are clearly defined trends in our comments too: people care about politics, football, basketball, and student government and food. Those are clearly defined groups of people with clearly defined interests. Everything else is passive.

So the question then becomes: Can a college newspaper really do social-networked news? They can do niche news, in fact, it’s all we do. But is making forums, profiles, citizen journalism, etc. on a campus like UNR worth it? Or is it just trendy? Is there a well defined community or public within that community? I’m not sure, but I’m thinking there might not be.

Also, students are already plugged into Facebook and other social-network applications, so what reason do they have to come onto yours? Yours doesn’t have all of their friends. So like Steve Outing said, go where the people go. If the students are on a Facebook group that’s school related, then go to them there, don’t try to drag them to your own.

Just make sure you link to it.