Stop Wondering What Readers Want, It Leads to Mediocrity
15 December 2009Newsflash: in the endless discussions about the future of journalism, most people are asking the wrong question: ,,What does the reader want?” What follows are assumptions about the behavior of the new news consumer. ,,He doesn’t want to pay for news”, ,,He’s only going to read from epaper”, etc etc.
Well, two things:
- Assumption is the mother of all f*ckups
- The reader has NO clue what he wants
Like Steve Jobs said: ,,If I asked consumers what they wanted, Apple would’ve never made the iPod.” Same goes for news. Journalists are the experts. They know what it takes to cover current affairs. They know how to write an essay. In short: they know their profession.
So now it’s time for them to start thinking about how they should present their news stories.
Last Saturday I met one of Amsterdam’s best reporters. He calls himself an old-fashioned journalist. That day, a research story of him was featured on a spread. It took a lot of work, and it definitely stirred up some stuff. There wasn’t an online version.
I asked him: ,,Shouldn’t you’ve linked to documents, extra witnesses stories, and video material? Shouldn’t you’ve published the audio interviews? And why wasn’t there any supporting video material?”
,,You’re absolutely right”, he said. ,,That would’ve been a better journalistic production.” ,,But I’m not going to do it. I’m a traditional journalist and I will remain one.”
Who can blame him? He’s in the autumn of his career. He writes great stories and doesn’t wanna be bothered with seminars to learn this new media stuff.
Thus I asked him: ,,What if a young journalist would help you with all that?”
,,That would be magnificent”, he replied.
Journalists should think how a medium can help them getting the information across. And if they don’t know how to use the tools, young guns can help them. Cause in the end, every good journalist wants his story to be heard.
Another example: I’m writing a story about Augmented Reality. I’ll use the newspaper to bring the general story. The blog for some more examples. I’ll ask the video team to shoot a demonstration. And I’ll promote it on Twitter and Facebook.
I’m a blogger! How does this concern me?
You’re not into journalism but just want blog tips? Sure enough. You can use the above story as an advice to ignore all ‘how to grow blog traffic’-articles. They’re based on mediocrity. Just think how you can get your message across.
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Categorie: blog inspiration
Tags: Amsterdam, creativity, journalism, new media, news
Enjoyed this post. I think it’s an important point you’re making. What with the emergence of Content Farms it’s getting harder to find good content. Journalists and bloggers alike need to work to ensure the good stuff gets through and passed along.
Thanks Jon! I hope people will get fed up with those content farms.
Good journalism – and by “good” I mean well researched, critical and pertinent – is dying a slow and laborious death. Addressing that is the bigger issue for me rather than worrying about, not worrying about what people want :) A chief editor supported by a crappy team of video editors, radio journalists and twitterers won’t be doing any favour to his readers by giving them
a cross media report.
And while I agree that worrying too much about what readers want is not a good thing – I think it is important to know who your audience is. The substance of the story may not change but the way you tell it would.
Thanks for the comment Ikenna! I agree, the basis must be a good journalism. That’s why I gave the example of one Amsterdam’s best reporters. He did a lot of investigative work on the matter, yet the only thing his audience will see of it, is a story on paper. And just one day.
I think his audience could’ve been way bigger, if he had used different medium-types. Plus: those who wanted more in depth info, would’ve been satisfied as well.
Good article. I see your point on mediocrity, and I can’t agree more. But there is a practical issue here. Imagine, you’re the person hiring journalists for a newspaper. You have ‘one of Amsterdam’s best reporters’ in your staff, but he’s old: can’t deal with multimedia. You could say: ,,What if a young journalist would help you with all that?”, but this isn’t the case in practice, I assume.
A newspaper would rather put the young journalist on this case, to cover it in a multimedia production. Or (and this happens most of the time) the newspaper just keeps working in the ‘old fashion way’. A lot of journalists are laid off at the moment, so how could they afford to put two journalists on this task? Maybe on some high profile stories, but these examples don’t happen verry often.
So, is this merely a ideal? Or do you think this can happen in reality?
Good point Jerry! One on one would be too expensive, I think. Yet when you hire a couple of young guns who help all the traditional journalists, I think it will be just fine.