AG on New Media

Evan Cornog, in his Columbia Journalism Review piece “Let’s Blame the Readers” discusses how newspapers might combat the marked decline in readership currently in progress in the United States. He mentions two opposing solutions: changing what papers cover and reeducating the American public. Cornog’s prognostications are faulty in that they are not extreme enough. Blog networks are doing a better job than newspapers ever can of coverage on topics readership studies say younger readers care about most meaning the educational role of the newspaper must improve if papers are to survive.

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In chapter 3 of “We the Media,” Gillmor highlights one way that the Internet has already made journalism better; bloggers and other citizens can act as the watchdogs of the watchdogs of democracy. To summarize (later in the book) Gillmor quotes early blogger Ken Layne: “We can Fact Check your ass,” (187).

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Perry Parks, in “The Online Revolution” from Making Important News Interesting, suggests that the newspaper audience is moving from print to online and that there are three different types of interaction between the traditional media and blogs. First, online news has moved journalism from a lecture to a conversation. Second, blogs act as the watchdogs of the watchdogs of democracy by critiquing the coverage of news organizations (Dan Rather’s retirement). Third, blogs can direct and control the news agenda (the Trent Lott story). He also discusses citizen journalism, or content creation by those in the community instead of those employed by a paper (YourHub.com of the Rocky Mountain News). Parks then presents a list of ways news organizations can make their online offerings more relevant.
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