Shaping new editorial visions, part I

I appreciated the tone of Melilssa Ludtke's introduction to the Winter 2008 Nieman Report on the state of journalism. While the news industry is just bubbling over with new technology and ways that journalists are incorporating it into our everyday practice, has anyone really stepped back and looked at how ridiculous it all seems sometimes? So many things to use for a story we've told perfectly well with paper and pen for years and years. But, here we are. It's not as if I don't enjoy the new technology or think it enhances what we are able to do - I'm definitely for it - but we need to tone down the hype a little.

So I'm not turning a blind eye, as Mark Briggs warns against. I do realize the need to adapt in both the sense of running with the times and creating a new business model - which really run hand in hand. In thinking about our projects, Briggs makes some interesting points about transparency in the newsroom. I think it would be a good idea to have an 'editors comments' section on the Web site we develop with the class, so that readers can be in tune to what the editors think are the best stories of the day and what we have to say about them. Then the readers can comment back and hopefully start a dialogue that way. This also goes along with what Vivian Vahlberg had to say about 'What young people like,' which, by the way, I felt was pretty spot on. Young people have said they appreciate the judgement of journalists over other young people - I think we should go with that. In fact, I wonder how successful a news site that was run by young journalists highlighting the stories they think are important might be?

The idea of journalism as a process instead of something you produce once on deadline is an interesting one - though I am adamantly against Twitter as a journalism tool. But it's true what Katie King says, the best thing the digital world has done for journalism is promote extended reporting. It's definitely something I could see happening at the news site we will create for the class. I'd like it to be a place where journalists care about their stories and want to come back and keep adding to them as they find new information. Plus, I think your readers trust you more if they see how invested in a story you are. It would make readers keep coming back.

And that's basically what it comes down to - how well is a journalist reporting and how well is the audience receiving it.