Idea Lab

The People Formerly Known as the Audience Need a New Name

by Ryan Sholin
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

I'm not one for semantic arguments. There's little-to-no practical value in deciding the names of things. ("User-generated content," anyone?) But if you spend your days and side projects talking to journalists about interacting with their readers, you tend to look for the right words to get your message across. Or at least I do. Because they're not really "readers" anymore, are they? The people formerly known as the audience? Accurate, but wordy -- and maybe a little too professorial for my usual purposes. So what do we call the human beings who both consume the journalism we produce and participate...

• July 21, 2009
• 17 comments

Self-Promotion Becomes a Prerequisite for Online Journos

by Dan Gillmor
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Scott Rosenberg, a former editor at Salon Magazine who's writing a book on blogging, takes aim at a fact of life for people creating new media online: They have to find ways to be noticed: This is the way the Web works. If this (or any) blog were my primary focus, I'd be out there rustling up readers for it, because that's what you have to do. I think a lot of journalists still see this as a grubby, low, self-promoting activity that is beneath them. Of course, it can be done in a grubby way (and often is) --...

• August 16, 2008
• No comments

Newspapers Struggling Online, Not Just in Print

by Paul Grabowicz
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

As disturbing as the recent numbers on declining print circulation and plunging advertising revenue at newspapers have been, less attention has been paid to ominous signs of a slow-down on the online side as well: - Most newspaper chains reported online revenue growth in single or low double digits this quarter, compared with growth rates of 15-20% or more a year ago. - The amount of time the average visitor spent at most newspaper web sites declined in February compared with a year ago, according to an Editor & Publisher report on Nielsen Online data. E&P reported similar data for...

• May 4, 2008
• 4 comments