Two things you should really look at today:
Steve Jackson, more widely known as ourman, has written a great post rethinking the way that newspapers should be run.
And, as highlighted by Martin, and originally produced by a German site, this video of Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger talking about journalism is thought-provoking viewing. The really juicy stuff starts about 1:53 in:
Alan Rusbridger on the Future of Journalism from Carta on Vimeo.
Steve Jackson, more widely known as ourman, has written a great post rethinking the way that newspapers should be run.
And, as highlighted by Martin, and originally produced by a German site, this video of Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger talking about journalism is thought-provoking viewing. The really juicy stuff starts about 1:53 in:
Alan Rusbridger on the Future of Journalism from Carta on Vimeo.
Thanks for the link.
Great bit of film "they know more than we do". Yes, yes, yes...no more lectures no more false smugness and superiority. No more assuming that you know your audience.
Amazed by how many points raised by Alan Rusbridger actually tally without my own ideas - I was worried that I was writing from a position of ignorance having never worked for a national paper.
Must update my article with this.
Thanks for the link, Adam. Rusbridger's thoughts are very interesting. Mind shift is a big one for journalists. He also mentions some people worth following via RSS - Jeff Jarvis, Clay Shirkey and Adrian Monck.
Agreed. The three of them don't always agree with each other, but they're all raising interesting ideas about the future of this trade.
As far as ourman goes, I thought one of the fundamental rationales for journalism in any media was to challenge the sort of sloppy, unsupported and highly contestable assertions made in this post. And didn't we used to have regional newspapers until recently? Nobody wanted to read them or advertise in them.
Rusbridger just repeats the rallying cry for web publishing only in a posher voice than usual. Surely everyone accepts the shift in power towards 'users' and 'citizens' and that we should be reorganising ourselves to get on with it. Who are we fighting this war against? I don't know a single journalist who hasn't accepted everything Rusbridger said for at least the last two years. OK, maybe one...
Really? I've met journalists in the last few weeks within the company who hate the idea of readers being able to comment on their work...
Noel, I am heartened by your assertion . . .
. . . but I have met quite a few journalists who are very sceptical about adopting new ways of working.
"the pricey business of quality journalism is going to require subsidy from somewhere"
Rusbridger seems to think he knows better what the public need than they do themselves, otherwise he'd give them something they're willing to buy instead of hoping for a sugar daddy to support it. Perhaps he'd like to see the Guardian become the next BBC, another media monolith diverting the productivity of British taxpayers toward distorting the market for information.