Newspapers: We Think Readers Want More of Us
April 10th, 2008 | by Brad King |My friend Jason emailed this story to me with this introduction: No Kidding.
The piece examined how editors and reporters viewed their online communities, and as you might expect, the readers didn’t exactly agree with the crafty journalists.
There are two basic findings: editors don’t want anonymous message boards posts on their site and they don’t want their reporters commenting on comments.
In other words, they really hope that you — the real you — will talk to them, but don’t expect them to listen.
That’s community building at its finest.
My favorite quote comes from John Bartosek, editor of The Palm Beach Post:
"That’s contrary to most of the traditions we’ve all grown up with, to keep our opinions, viewpoints and personal lives out of our story," Bartosek said. "There’s some indication that readers are looking for something more online. Whether it’s information about our expertise, our knowledge, our background, I’m not really sure."
Yes, John, there is some indication that readers may be looking for a different experience online when it comes to news. And frankly, they aren’t looking for institutional knowledge from reporters and editors. They are looking for data sets that allow them to find the information that they want.
The best newspaper information model is the calendar. People want to easily find where, when and what is happening. Sure, stories are nice additions to that data, but first and foremost people want to know what they want to know.
