Save the Media

Dear neglected blog readers, I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you. But I do have some tidbits that are worth a read:

Q and A with Steve Buttry: Brian Cubbison features an interview with Buttry on his blog this week that’s truly worth a read. (Full disclosure, Brian is a friend and former colleague; Buttry is a “virtual” friend.)  Buttry is a former newspaperman who is now director of community engagement for Allbritton Communications, the owners of Politico. Buttry explains in the piece his ideas about connecting communities and why he left  newspapers. The interview really resonates with me, and I think it would with others who have grappled with the same issues. As Buttry explains about his decision to leave newspapers: 

It wasn’t a point; it was a process. I knew it long before I admitted it, even to myself, and there were several stages of realization. I was frustrated by the timid, tentative response throughout the industry to the powerful and specific call for transformation. … I knew I needed to get out, and I didn’t expect to find a good opportunity in the newspaper industry.

Give us some context, please: J-prof Jeremy Littau has a powerful piece on how much of the traditional media failed readers in coverage of the recently approved health-care plan. His point is the media focused too much on the horse-race aspects of the issue (who is against it; who is for it; which side will will) versus the content. The result is a public that’s still confused about what was approved.

I agree. I’ve observed quite a bit of confusion about what the health-care plan contains among friends — both real and virtual.  My own mother even called me at one point in a panic about the alleged (and untrue) death panels in the plan.  

Sure, you can argue that it’s up to people to ferret out the truth, so if they are confused, it’s their own fault. I don’t buy that.  I believe it’s an important job of the news media to inform the public about what’s going on in government.  Some news web sites offered cool approaches to explaining what the plan means, but much was too little too late. People were already confused or felt the plan was too complex to understand. I found some  of the best reporting on the proposal after it was passed, and that shouldn’t be the case.

This isn’t unique to health care. I’d argue the same thing happened with the same-sex marriage initiative in New York state and, quite honestly, the Obama-McCain campaign.

 I think news organizations sell readers short with this approach. People need substance and context, not just snippets of news telling which side is ahead. I’m not saying to ignore the politics but expand, offer more. I’d suggest the news organizations that learn to do context well will be the ones that survive.

Update:  WikiCity, a hyperlocal site that I’ve written about before, has some news. The company announced this week it is teaming up with the Wahoo (Nebraska) Newspaper, according to a news release. WikiCity, which started in late 2008 and launched publicly last summer, is a bit like  CitySearch with its telephone-book-like listings of restaurants and businesses, but it lets readers update their community’s pages, giving a bit of a  Wikipedia feel. 

The Omaha World-Herald announced in October that it had purchased WikiCity, and the Wahoo Newspaper is part of the World-Herald family. The idea is WikiCity will give the Wahoo Newspaper another tool to connect with its readers. The plan is for more of these type of relationships, according to an e-mail from Pat Lazure, WikiCity founder and now president of the World Interactive Group, which runs WikiCity.

Get Delicious: Kevin Sablan, of Almighty Link, offers a thorough primer on how to make the most of the bookmarking site Delicious. Though some argue Delicious is passe, I use it a lot.  I use it as a storage spot for articles I want to save for a future blog post or just want to keep. Sablan’s use of Delicious goes way beyond that. He figured out a way to network through it. He also explains how to use one link to find more. Good stuff.

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