Save the Media

Time for short takes — my best bets from surfing the blogosphere:

Community-directed reporting: Daniel Victor, of the Harrisburg Patriot-News, is experimenting with using readers as assigning editors of sorts: He’ll  solicit story ideas from readers as blog comments, and then let other readers vote on which stories he’ll pursue next. It’s a novel idea, and there’s much I like about it. The best ideas come from readers. I’m not knocking editors, but I think it’s too easy for an editor to mistake “what the reader wants” with “what I want.” I’m eager to hear how Victor’s project turns out.

More Twitter support: All you naysayers who bashed Twitter as a useless waste of time with no “utility” for newspapers, you best eat your words. Pew Research Center found in December that 11 percent of Americans who are online say they use Twitter or a similar service, which is notable as Twitter just started in 2006. (Just imagine how many might be on it a year from now?) And usage is greatest among the age group advertisers covet: Twenty percent of the online adults ages 25 to 34 are on Twitter, Pew found.  So if you’re not on Twitter, get on it. Now. And use it. Don’t just talk about reaching young readers. Reach them.

Blog traffic: Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, Twitter. Do these help you grow traffic? Are they worth the effort? And if so, how do you use them? If you’ve asked these questions, The Future Buzz offers a case study that explains which sites worked best and which produced temporary traffic spikes with little permanent gain. It’s worth a read.

Newspapers are just like railroads: Martin Langeveld at Harvard’s  Nieman Journalism Lab reflects on the declared bankruptcy of four major newspapers and  and compares the news industry’s decline to what happened to railroads. He suggests some ways newspapers can “emerge from this recession with a structure that can enable a thriving news industry”: consolidate — at the corporate and city and regional levels; accelerate a move to online-first operations; merge or consolidate with other media.

No, wait. Newspapers are just like libraries: R. David Lankes, an associate professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, offers an impassioned blog post at Virtual Dave about how to save libraries that I found so inspiring, I wanted to mention it here. Lankes and I are friends, and we’ve chatted (by e-mail) about the similarities between the struggling industries we both respectively care about. They both relate to reading and technology; they both are mired as the dinosaurs in the field face up against the innovators. I think his message of hope is relevant for all of us trying to change journalism who feel frustrated by those in our industry who refuse to budge. His best takeaway:  “How do I get inspired to face (intransigence), or laziness, or ineptitude? I look right past them at the real goal, and those who really need me. Block me, and I will go around you. Build a wall, and I will build a door. Lock the door, and I will break a window.”

Hope you’re feeling pepped up. Carry on.

– Gina