I stopped in the store
the other day for some simple shopping.
Beer, peanuts and some Beef Jerky.
Maybe not the finest in culinary selections, but it was an easy trip to
the store.
Customer in, customer out.
It’s a great model.
For groceries, shoes, luggage and generally most consumer goods and some
services.
But what would happen if it was customer in, consumer
out. What if customers became discriminating
consumers? Things could change depending
on what was being consumed.
One area where things have changed is in journalism. Breaking news – journalism is not dead. The delivery system by which we get our news
has and as we become more technology savvy, so too has our ability to become
strong news consumers. Ask someone where
they get their news from and you’ll find that all-too-often, they’ll say the
internet, or Twitter or Facebook.
They have no idea as to what the source is. They are, in many ways, becoming more of a
news customer than news consumer. They
know the site, but not the source.
Large media organizations typically try to present
stories that are, as they say in the world of news literacy, Viable,
Independent and Accountable. They focus
on watchdog journalism and try (nothing is perfect) to present independent and
non biased reporting.
According to the Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook
University, an organization that I am now associated with and have attended
in-depth seminars at, news literacy, in general terms is “the ability to use critical
thinking skills to judge the reliability and credibility of news reports,
whether they come via print, television or the Internet.” The goal?
To have educated news consumers who have the knowledge to engage in
civic actions – whether it’s facilitating change in the community or voting in
an election. The late Daniel Patrick
Moynihan was known for saying “everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but
not their own facts.” Or, as they used
to say in the glory days of the old Chicago City news Bureau, “You say your
mother loves you...check it out.”
It makes sense.
But what if there was a media organization that treated its readers like
customers? Let’s say they just put
information out there for the sake of putting out there without a trained,
responsible editor to ensure its independence.
Sounds crazy, no?
But in our little village of Buffalo Grove (with
apologies to Sholem Aleichem) that has, and continues to happen.
On Wednesday, Hale Global, the fine folks who bought AOL Patch
from AOL, decided they could be a viable news organization without news
personnel, so they laid off (there is other terminology that can be used..)
hundreds of staff members who doggedly worked to cover one or two communities
to give Patch the hyper-local coverage from which AOL had hoped to earn
money. Lots of it.
Among the victims was Cristel Mohrman who covered Buffalo
Grove for 3 ½ years. Patch, which probably
felt one community was just too easy, also tossed Lake Forest at Cristel as
well. Cristel was everywhere she could
be covering events, taking photos and even video. But that was not good enough for the folks at
corporate.
Silly girl. You
were treating our customers as news consumers.
That doesn’t make money. Just get
‘em in and like sheep to the slaughter, we’ll record the hits to the page and
make money.
So now what? Patch
will be turned into a collection of PR releases, mommy blogs and public service
announcements. The folks at Hale Global
probably think that the news consumers in Big Animal Grove won’t know the
difference. Independent reporting? Nah.
Takes too long. Bias free
information? Nah, too expensive. Accountable news gathering? You kidding? That cost money.
So once again the news consumer comes up short. Or as they say at the elevator company, they
get the shaft. And don’t think it’s
limited to Patch. Pioneer, which once
had local offices, beat reporters, now slices and dices its editorial staff
members so much the Popeil family would be jealous. They too have focused more on quantity as
opposed to quality. To bastardize the New
York Times slogan, it’s all the news that fits, we print. Mommy blog? Sure, we’ll fill a page. Old news, sure why not? Seriously, in the Jan. 23 issue of the Countryside
was coverage of Kristallnacht – which took place Nov. 9. The prevailing attitude is that news
consumers today are stupid, they’ll take anything, so just treat them like a
customer – they’ll never know the difference.
Yes they will.
The push for critical thinking skills is allegedly at the
heart of the common core curriculum for the nation’s high schools. Unfortunately, it’s not a quantifiable skill
like grammar, math and science. And if
you mention news literacy, many administrators gasp and say “we already have a
journalism class.”
We’re talking critical thinking skills here. We’re talking about using the media as one
conduit to encourage news consumers to use independent and nonbiased material
when making decisions related to civic responsibilities.
Media organizations that remove this opportunity are shirking
their responsibility to news consumers, treating them instead like
one-size-fits-all customers.
In a perfect world, media organizations will step back
and take stock of what is needed and do the right things to attract, enhance
and inform news consumers.
Let’s hope they don’t try to Patch things up.
No comments:
Post a Comment