RSS
Recipe For Big-Media Success: Ignore Your Audience
from the all-the-news-that-we-decide-is-fit-to-print dept
A post on a newspaper-industry blog takes the Torontoist to task for ignoring the story of the arrests of a number of suspected terrorists in the city, something the city and country's mainstream media was all over. Never mind that Torontoist, like the other "-ist" sites, doesn't pretend to be a straight-up news site, it's more interested in pop culture and entertainment, and its editors are probably intelligent enough to realize that it didn't have much to add to a story that its audience had probably already seen elsewhere. The post is pretty telling, though, in that it reflects the mainstream media's idea that being everything to everyone is a viable strategy, particularly online, also ignoring the reality that bloggers don't need to be journalists at all. It's interesting to note that when Torontoist did cover the story, its entry didn't solicit any comments -- so perhaps actually knowing your audience isn't such a bad thing. The original dressing-down ends with an arrogant comment typical of too many journalists' view of bloggers: "They need to learn a lot about journalism." If that's the case, then this guy needs to learn a lot about the internet.
11 Comments | Leave a Comment..
Reader Comments (rss)
(Flattened / Threaded)
And seriously, how meaningless are your lives that you feel the need to point out that your made the first comment?
[ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Second Post!
[ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]
[ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=102383
[ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]
Big media
It was not useful to me to hear a commentator on the CBC radio network this morning speculating that when the suspects were running around in the woods with guns maybe they were just playing paintball.
Nor do I find it helpful when the media (copying the American networks) go and interview the families of the accused.
As a Canadian, I want to hear the wiretaps and see the videos then I can make up my own mind. In the meantime the three tonnes of ammonium nitrate suggests some of those boys should wind up doing some serious time.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]
Last Post
[ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Last Post
*bang*
[ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]
*new last post :P
[ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]
Recipe for small-media failure: Ignore your audien
[ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]
Torontoist not on the story - and big media arroga
Further, the "ists" and other similar blogs are presenting themselves as alternatives to the big media. So, where is the alternative viewpoint? What is the impact on minority communities going to be? Is there even a sense of outrage (at the arrest or that the arrest was trumpeted by the cops)? I still think they should have done something with the story rather than wait nearly 2 days to get to it.
That seems to me a fundamental misunderstanding of the power of the Web, not my so-called MSM outlook.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]
Add Your Comment